#like goddamn there is no feminist movement anymore

[catgirltoes]

Also I hate how there's so little feminist consciousness in the zeitgeist nowadays. Like for the mostpart people have a vague awareness that 'sexism bad' but there's so little ability to actually identify when things are sexist and why. There's so little recognition that misogyny is a genuine force of oppression. And what feminist consciousness does exist is utterly impotent, regardless of the form it takes.

[genderisareligion]

Have you noticed that a big part of the unconditional support transactivism receives from women despite this movement being built on misogyny is because many MANY so called feminists don't want to actually acknowledge male supremacy? They eventually will criticize/oppose to one or another sexist event (like the abortion ban in USA) but as time goes on, they just forget it and even manage to despolitize them. Now, reproductive rights isn't an integral part of women’s rights anymore, it's “queer/lgbtqia+ rights”, “bipoc with vaginas rights”, etc.

But nothing makes it more obvious than the fact that women(even black/indigenous women) easily accepted they're “cis” - implying they have privileges for their womanhood not being denied - which is laughable because how being “acknowledged” as women is a privilege when to be a woman - specially a woc - in a misogynistic world is oppressive? The acceptance of the infamous “cis” also implies that both men and women are equally oppressive towards trans people, thus the analysis of male violence lost space to the more malleable “gendered violence”. By place both “cis” men and women, any observations of male patterns of violence is discouraged because it's “transphobia” (but why it would be transphobia if trans women are women like “cis women” and are targeted by men most of the time? Hmmmm) and a vile MRA rhetoric start to take place in feminism disguised as a true compromise with “gender equality”: women can be as bad if not worse than men. Women aren't victimized by male supremacy, in reality it's men who are the biggest victims. In the name of “not infantilizing women” for JUST acknowledge that misogyny exists, people are infantilizing men and giving them a free pass on their mistreatment of women.

Many so called feminists also lack sex class consciousness and they internalized all the sexist shit we have been taught by our society. So they really act that trans women are the ones who bring humanity to women's status, this is why claims like “If you don't think trans women are women, it means you think women are inferior” what is the connection between a man thinking he is a woman because he identity as one (whatever that means) with women supposedly inferiority? Women literally carry the whole humanity! Our bodies are complexes and prepared to survival and they pull out this weak guilt tripping rhetoric and women eat this up, think the only way they can achieve humanity is through males? Pffff

Honestly, after reading The Creation of Patriarchy by Gerda Lerner(a must read to any feminist), this actual state of feminism became even more clear: men have stolen women's humanity, women's knowledge of our bodies, even the position of the creators of life, despite the fact that they can't get pregnant. The next step is stealing the womanhood itself and it isn't a random event, it's part of their colonization of females. Understanding how they operate helps us to fight back.

🙏🏽

“Cis” is the biggest pile of horse shit and my #1 source on this has always been and will always be my girl Audre Lorde. Who in the entirety of the book Sister Outsider goes to great lengths to emphasize: women can simultaneously have different lives/womanhoods (ex.black versus white womanhood, ie intersectionality) while working together against patriarchy. I think it’s funny/sad that today the white man’s “intersectionality” hates black women like me who reject gender roles and claims there is a sweeping “cis” womanhood privilege that’s so universal it automatically places all non trans “afabs” (nearly 50% of the goddamn globe) above trans “afabs” and “amabs” in status and life quality. Audre also goes to great lengths to support the statement “the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house” which I’ve always pretty plainly taken to mean that gender will never dismantle sexism.

You’re 💯 on these feminists who can’t deal with the reality of male supremacy. Gender framework is a sugar coat that makes things easier to cope with. I get it, sexism is pervasive and normalized as fuck and it’s scary to think about how angry a lot of men would probably get if things actually changed and they didn’t have access to female abuse as often as they do. But I’m personally also fed up with being scared and highly prefer just being pissed off back lol and trying to actively do something about changing it. They can be mad all they want, I’m not stopping until we get our humanity back fully even if it’s not within my lifetime and step #1 is naming the problem

[motherfucker-somewhat-limited]

Why the “reclaim bimbo” trend has taken off and why I fucking hate it so much

I think most people are familiar by now with the whole Bimbofication trend by now - the movement that says that it’s woke and feminist, actually, to completely lean into sexist and objectifying stereotypes - and now I’m going to try to articulate why I hate it so goddamn much. @classical-dyke already made a great post about how bimbo-ism can be seen as a mainstream cultural response to the VSCO trend, and we all know that corporations will jump on any trend that allows them to sell you stuff (I could argue that Hydroflask and performative environmentalist companies made a killing off of VSCO but whatever) so I’m not gonna talk about those.

What I am gonna attempt to articulate is the way that (white) feminism and performative activism have strayed so far that they’ve circled back to bite themselves in the asses.

Performative activism - emphasis on “perform”

The modern social media landscape has evolved such that it is more important to appear “woke” than to actually be involved in, or even know anything about, the issues you discuss. We all know this. It’s why giant corporations bust out the rainbows every June and why I have to suffer through endless MCU #Girlboss edits.

On an individual level, it means that every single thing you do online has to be tied in to your personal politics, and god help you if those politics aren’t the right ones. Every musician you listen to has to be a shining star of social responsibility. Every show you watch either needs to be completely unproblematic, or you have to prepare a fully sourced essay with MLA-format citations about Why It’s Okay For You To Like This Thing Because It Helps You Process Your Personal Trauma Or Whatever to whip out every time you make a post. The whole CARRD/putting your life story in your bio thing.

And in the case of bimbos, insisting that liking crop tops and glittery eyeshadow means you’re a communist, actually.

I think capitalism sucks and pushing back against the endless waves of advertising and monetizing is great. Every time I see someone selling t-shirts of a current event that happened 5 minutes ago I vomit in my mouth a little. But people have taken it to such extremes now that if you profess to like material goods or anything mainstream, you’re an evil dirty capitalist and also complicit in everything wrong in society.

Nobody is allowed to just like stuff anymore. You either have to loudly and constantly proclaim how horrible it is or loudly and constantly explain why you like your pink lip gloss and why it’s okay and doesn’t conflict with your infallible wokeness. So what we end up with is this group saying that not only is having your tits out on social media leftist, the two are actually intrinsically tied.

Not Like Other Girls, pink flavor

When I was in high school, I wore baggy t-shirts and sneakers instead of makeup and high heels and dresses. I read books and had smart people thoughts instead of listening to pop or having crushes on boys. I was Not Like Other Girls (the unspoken implication here being that I was better than other girls) because I didn’t rely on shallow physical beauty and sex appeal for a sense of self-worth. 

(What I actually was, was fucking gay, but I didn’t realize that until halfway through college. Also, pop music is catchy and fun.)

Bimbos wear lots of makeup and glitter. They like the color pink and tight skirts and mesh tops. They act ditzy and suck at math. They are Not Like Other Girls because they can lean into their femininity and sexuality, even going so far as embracing an insulting stereotype created by the men they profess to hate, without compromising their sense of self-worth. In fact, it’s the source of their empowerment!

Do you see a common thread here?

Targeting impressionable young girls

What we get here is a perfect storm of factors that lead to young girls sexualizing themselves and calling it empowerment.

Being a teen or pre-teen is hard. You’re trying to figure out who you are as a person, how to navigate into adulthood, and all you want is to have some goddamn agency in your decisions. And that’s why the bimbo movement fucking sucks, because it takes attractive social and political ideologies (human rights! gender equality! lgbt inclusivity! making personal choices apart from societal expectations!) and then ties it to a full face of expensive makeup and a Victoria’s Secret push-up bra, and now you have 14-year-olds with their tits on TikTok thinking that they’re participating in some sort of radical self-liberation movement. And they can get away with it because they know the proper buzzwords to say to get the Purity Police off their backs.

In some ways, it feels like a betrayal. One of the big draws of feminist/leftist circles for many women was this idea that you don’t have to look Like That to get respect as a human being. You don’t have to be hot and sexy and flawless to have worth. It was a space where you could learn to divorce yourself from mainstream media expectations, to figure out which choices you made because they actually made you happy vs. the choices you made because you liked the rewards society gave you for conformation. But now here come the bimbos with their flawless contour and their surface-level communist rhetoric, and it just completely muddies those waters.

Tl;dr

You are allowed to like things without having to give a full moral justification for it, and that includes liking mainstream things.

Adhering to modern beauty standards while saying you’re doing it for yourself, actually, isn’t the radical move you think it is.

Encouraging minors to hypersexualize themselves is bad.

[dontdietwd]

Day 77

“Why do you think you and I didn’t get along?” Andrea broke the silence when we ate quietly siting on the hood of the car. It was a valid question.

“We’re just very different,” was all I answered.

“You really think so?”

“Yeah.”

“But you don’t even know my story. Just like I don’t know yours.”

“You know a bit of mine,” I told her and, when she looked confused at me, I moved on. “That night at the camp… With Amy and the wine…”

She took a breath as if hearing her sister’s name felt like a punch in the stomach. “Yeah… That part.”

“That part… That part tells a lot about me,” but I thought a bit more about it. “But it’s not… I don’t know, I always felt like you were always trying too hard. I wondered a few times why was that.”

“What did I seem to be trying too hard?”

“To be strong. To be independent, feminist, to rub in the men’s faces that you were just as good as them. You didn’t need to try that hard to show it… You already were, I could see it, but you kept trying to make it very clear to everyone.”

“I don’t know if I know how to act any other way…”

“Why’s that?”

She thought for a moment before saying “My father… He was very, uh… Demanding. Rigorous, critical. He was always finding my mistakes, my weaknesses, and my mom’s… I guess instead of believing him and putting myself down as well, I wanted to prove him wrong. Everything I did was always to show him that he was wrong.”

I had judged Andrea, not ever stopping to think that her personality that I disliked would have come from something. Everyone has a history and their own wounds and they all make a person what they are. I didn’t dislike her anymore. Andrea had shot Daryl in an unconscious attempt to prove do Dale, a father figure, and probably Shane too, that she was capable of doing it. She was not right and it was no excuse, but I could understand it a bit better now.

We talked as we followed road signs. On pointed to a church somewhere in a community and we followed it, talking a side road. Even only three months with no care this road already had overgrown on all the sides, and it made me uneasy. Walkers could be hiding on the bushes, so I had my axe ready. We needed to find Andrea a weapon urgently. Since this morning she’d been carrying a spike that we thought would be strong enough, but it was not ideal. And we needed food, water, and a car. And to find our group. To find Daryl.

Oh, Daryl…

“You ‘n I… We’re it.”

The bushes shook right on our left side removing me abruptly form the memories. As if they’d been there all the time, just waiting for us to get close enough as if they could think, a small herd of walkers came out, at least ten of them. Surprised, Andrea and I stumbled a bit and ran ahead on the road, but from the same bushes ahead of us, more of them came out, so we turned to go back were we’d come from, but the first part of them had closed the road behind us. So I grabbed Andrea, and she grabbed me, and we ran into the woods on our side, straight into the bushes, All I hoped is that there weren’t more in there. I felt something cut my arm and still ran, entering the sparse patch of woods there.

Goddamn big herd. They’d been dormant there and our presence woke them up and now they were coming and I did not get scared, I got fucking furious. This again, seriously? Running through the woods with walkers behind me and nowhere to go? No fucking way.

“That tree!” I shouted at Andrea over the walkers’ growls. “Climb up!”

It was a huge oak, royally standing there, dwarfing all the other trees around. Thick, strong branches that seemed easy to climb. Well, at least for me, I was used to that stuff, so I let Andrea go first, positioning my hands to give her foot a shove up. She groaned in the effort to go up but was out of the ground in seconds and kept on. I looked around before going up and they were there, at least tree closer and this crowd of dead behind them. Axe in hand, I looked up at Andrea who was just settling on a higher branch, safe, looking down terrified at me. I let the axe fall against the oak roots, I knew the walkers wouldn’t be taking it, obviously, took a few steps back for impulse and ran, climbing over the tree. It would have been a much easier movement just months ago without the baby bump and not being so hurt and tired, but I did the job. In seconds I was sitting with Andrea, the walkers on the ground confused, looking around and passing the tree following nothing. Thanks to fuck they were not smart at all.

“What now?” Andrea whispered. We were sitting straddling the branch face to face, pretty close to each other. I was glad she’d learned not to be loud. Finally.

“Now we wait. They’ll pass.”

“We won’t be able to hold this position much longer.”

She was right. We’d have to hold upright, holding on only to the branch we were sitting in.

“Okay, rest your back against the trunk,” I whispered to her pointing to the tree with my chin. She was about four feet away from it. I offered her a hand to steady her. “Slide back, careful.”

Nodding demonstrating just how nervous she was, she took my hand while I still held myself to the branch with the other and started wiggling her hips backwards, sliding really slowly, afraid she’d tumble sideways. I stretched myself forward to keep her hand safe in mine, until her back finally rested against the trunk. She breathed. I asked if she was alright with thumbs up gesture and she nodded.

Now I had to get a better position, and for that I’d need to go to another branch, the best option was one above us and slightly to the left. The herd under us lifted dust and a terrible stench, but I tried to ignore it. Had to ignore the fact that if I fell I’d have absolutely no chance. No chance to survive, for by boy to survive, to lead Andrea to safety, for me to find the group, to see Daryl again.

But well, no pressure!

I slid towards Andrea and she helped me on the last few inches as we sat nearly chest to chest, and then using the tree trunk and her shoulders as leverage, I carefully stood up.

“Oh god, careful!” Andrea whispered in terror from beneath me.

I said nothing, just focused in reaching up to a thinner yet stiff branch above my head, needing to get on my tiptoes to be able to get a good grip. Trusting it, I eyed the larger branch that was my goal, calculated, took a deep breath and jumped, my hands firm on the branch as I swung my whole body. I heard Andrea whimper in trepidation when my feet did not reach where they were supposed to and I hang there by my hands, whimpering. I was breathing hard through my teeth, my arms burning at my own weight, nothing under my feet except for the herd. Concentrating, I swung my body back once again, taking a stronger impulse than before, and reached it. I hugged the branch with my legs and stopped for a moment, breathing, and then gave the branch I was holding a strong shove and let go, throwing my upper body over the large one. I hugged it with arms and legs, my face turned to Andrea and stayed like that for a moment, my strong breath puffing my cheeks. After a moment I sat up and slid back a little, finally finding the oak trunk and resting against it.

I was getting old for this. And too tired. And maybe just a bit too pregnant.

* * *

I didn’t doze. I just rested my eyes.

Andrea and I were silent for a long time. It was probably over an hour. We didn’t know how many walkers big the heard had been, but it was so much larger than we thought. So, so much. They were slow, so it took a long time for their crowd to thin up, but even then they never stopped coming. Looking down, I could see at least five at each time, never less than that, as if they were following each other, not necessarily us or anything alive. They were just walking aimlessly, but at the moment we jumped back to the ground they’d attack.

My back was burning and Andrea was always trying to stretch and change positions the best she could. We couldn’t stay here for much longer.

“Hey,” I whispered at her and she looked sideways at me. “Where’s your spike?”

“Down there,” she pointed to the ground. It was fallen near the roots, just a foot away from my axe.

“We gonna have to go down,” I told her.

Her eyes opened more at that, “You’re sure?”

“We need to go, can’t just stay here. They’ll never stop coming. We’ll have to kill a few and run in that direction,” I pointed behind us. “I don’t see any movement from there. And then we can try the main road again.”

Swallowing visibly, Andrea nodded.

“Hey,” I called her again and she looked back at me. “You can do it.”

She nodded again, taking a calming breath.

“I’ll jump down first and start on them so you’ll have time to go down and take your spike, ok?”

“Please be careful!” she told me

I nodded, “When you have the spike, we’ll stand back to back and kill them, alright?”

I didn’t wait for her to answer because I knew she’d just nod nervously and maybe tell me to be careful again. So, trusting she’d do as I said, I threw a leg to the side of the branch and let myself fall. I fell heavily to the ground to a crouch and looked around just as the walkers saw me. Taking the axe that was at my feet, I got up and walked towards them rolling it in my hands.

Come on, motherfuckers.

Andrea did exactly as I said. When she got her back to mine, armed with the spike, I had killed two of them already. One by one we let them come and killed them. Odd how satisfying it was becoming… Creepy to think about that.

It stopped being satisfying when Andrea’s spike broke and she screamed when the walker came over her. She stumbled backways, falling down by my side, the walker over her. I had one right there coming at me but Andrea was panicking.

“Fuck!” I shouted and shoved the farmer walker away with a kick in the chest, and then turned to help her, my axe spiking into the back of its head. It fell dead on top of Andrea and I turned to deal with the one I’d kicked.

Too close. It was inches away from me, no space for me to rise the axe, its hands reaching and grabbing my arms. I fought it way, stepping back and then…

Well…

Then the head of the walker was gone, falling to the ground like a football, its heavy body falling just a moment after.

Standing right there in front of me was a living person I had not seen arrive at all, hood up covering her face, a sword in hand. A fucking sword. Behind her were two walkers chained as if on leashes, just standing there, not attacking or anything. She said nothing, just moved on to kill the next walker as I recovered from my shock enough to keep fighting them with my axe, Andrea not getting up, too scared and obviously weaponless to fight. The ninja with the sword killed like half a dozen walkers in seconds when I dealt with three of them with the heavy axe.

Damn, I wish I had a sword.

Then they were gone. The woman and I looked around, rounding each other to make sure no more walkers were near, and it was finally clear. Only then I faced her again, just as Andrea got up from the ground. The ninja was shaking her sword, walker blood splattering out of its surface.

“Where did you come from?!” I asked before even thinking about thanking her.

“You alright?” she asked.

You know in movies when somebody suddenly remembers something and a lot of scenes of those memories are quickly shown? Her voice did that to me. It was just not possible. I leaned down a bit trying to see her face under the hood and asked, disbelief clear in my voice:

“Michonne?”

She paused, just like Andrea by my side, and after a couple of seconds she lowered the hood and damn, it was really her, surprise widening her eyes.

“Sam?!”

I laughed. No, really, I just had to laugh. How the fuck was this possible? How, in the middle of the woods of Georgia I could’ve just had my ass saved by Michonne?

“Oh my God, Sam!” she said and rushed to hug me. I’m not sure if I was laughing or crying now as I hugged her back. It was just so good to see her.

“Holly shit, Michonne, I can’t believe it!”

She let go of me and held me by my arms, “You did get the dreads done!”

I laughed aloud, “I did!”

“I can’t believe you know each other!” Andrea said by my side and sobered me up a little.

“Mich, this is my friend Andrea. Andrea, Michonne was by best friend in high school!”

Andrea huffed a quick laugh, “Seriously?”

“Yes!” Michonne and I answered together.

“You’re back!” I said turning to Mich after she and Andrea shook hands.

“I was living in Sandy Springs when the outbreak happened. Tried to go down to Savannah after a while but… Well. Couldn’t.”

Oh, something bad had happened.

“Let’s catch up later. We need to get out of those woods, this huge herd just passed by us. And fuck, you’ll need to explain these two!” I said pointing at the walkers in chain behind her.

“I saw the herd,” Michonne said. “Didn’t think living person could be ‘round here ‘till you two jumped down from the tree,” she said as she sheathed her sword on the holster hanging from her back. “C’mon, I’m holing up in a cabin a few miles away.”

 * * *

 It was a simple hunting cabin among the trees, but Michonne seemed to have worked a bit on it already. It was almost clean and there were boards on the windows, an oil lamp on a table, bottles of water and canned food on the small kitchen area and a bed with blankets at a corner.

Andrea and I ate from what she gave us and had water and were able to sit and rest a little. Andrea dozed off right there where she sat on the floor. The poor woman was exhausted.

I sat on the bed with my back to the wall and Michonne came to sit by my side. Quietly, she reached for my hand and squeezed it, and we smiled at each other sideways.

“It’s so good to see you…” she told me quietly.

“You have no idea, Mich…”

And at that, with no warning, I started crying. Clutching her hand, my chin fell against my chest and I cried, my chest painfully tight.

“Oh, honey…” she whispered and hugged me sideways, making my head fall on her shoulder. “It’s alright… You let it out.”

I couldn’t speak for long minutes. After I was cried out, I straightened and tried to dry my face but even if I wasn’t sobbing anymore, the tears still fell freely.

“You two alone?” Mich asked in a whisper.

My chin trembled as I nodded. “We had a group... Got separated from them. They’re still out there, somewhere.”

“How this happened?”

Well, she got me started. I told her all that happened that night with Shane, but to explain Shane I had to tell why he’d hated me so much to the point of trying to murder me, and to explain it, I explained my leadership of the group and how it all started, since Savannah, since the Dixon’s house.

“So Daryl thinks you’re dead?” she asked when I finished. She’d also asked questions during the tale, to understand it better.

I felt like crying again when I said “He does… And the way he screamed…” and I didn’t hold anymore, I cried again.

“They’re still out there,” Mich squeezed my hand and said it firmly. “They might think you’re dead but you know they’re alive. We can find them.”

We.

“We’ll stay together now, right?” I asked her, nodding with a hope she’d say yes.

“We absolutely will,” she said with total certainty.

“Do you have a group?”

She smiled sadly, shaking her head. “No. It’s just me. I’ve been alone since the beginning.”

I reached out for her other hand, now holding firmly to both of them. “Not anymore. You’re not alone.”

She smiled tearfully as she nodded. She pulled me for a hug again and I was so relieved to have found someone I trusted so much, someone I had loved as a sister one day in the past. It was like a balm to be feeling something good among so much sadness.

“Now…” she said as she let me go. “What about this belly there? Daryl’s?”

“Not technically… But after we got together he said he wanted it. So yeah… It’s Daryl’s.”

“Damn… Must be hard for him to think he’s lost not only you but his baby too…”

“God…” I cried. “This hurts so much because I can imagine what he’s feeling. It would have killed me if it was him…”

“He’ll make it through it.”

Oh, something bad had happened.

“Mich… Who did you lose?”

Her eyes went vacant in an instant. She looked away and down and I knew whoever it was, it was still fresh, it still hurt just to think of it.

“Can’t speak if it… Not yet,” she said, her voice grave.

“It’s okay. I’ll be here when you want to talk,” I whispered at her and saw her nod, still not looking at me. I was silent for a moment before speaking again. “Andrea lost her sister,” I told her and Michonne looked at me and then at the sleeping Andrea. “Not long ago. It’s been… God, feels like a year but… Two weeks ago? So much’s happened since then…”

“We’ve all been hurt, one way or another… Sometimes I don’t even know what the hell I’m still fighting for.”

I thought for a moment. “People kept saying it was the apocalypse. The end of the fucking world. But… We’re still here. Ain’t we? We’re here, alive. Finding old friends,” I smiled at her and she also did, tight lipped. “And still able to fight, and breathe, and love. So the world ain’t really over, is it? We’re still here.”

She smiled at me, eyes shining with tears. “We’re still here.”

[cannabisrefugee-esq]

American Feminism Was (Is) a Psy-Op. Western Medicine Shored up Male Power. Discuss.

This post is about American feminism specifically since that’s the brand I know the most about and the one that affects me every day of my life.  I am not talking about other “feminisms” in other places but here in my own country where, after 100 years of feminist activating, including actual and/or perceived successes American women still face the following oppressive realities of living under American men’s particular brand of patriarchy:

1.  We are removed from natural food and water sources and rely on necrophilic men to supply us and our dependents with the material necessities of life including food, water and plant-based medicine;

2.  Our land including our soil, air, water and biomass (i.e. food, pets and ourselves) have been consistently poisoned since the 1940s (that we know about) with male-made nuclear radiation where this kind of ionizing radiation is known to be dangerous and not compatible with life or health;

3.  Physical and mental “health” have been medicalized where “health problems” are synonymous with “medical problems” meaning that in America, health and Western (capitalistic patriarchal) medicine are the same thing;

4.  All institutional power remains in men’s hands with only token female representation in positions of military, economic, academic, scientific, police, media, regulatory and all relevant political and social power in every area.  This includes 100% male control over Western medicine and therefore over sick and dying bodies.

This is a partial list and a specific progression but it will do for now.

What is a psy-op?  A psy-op or psychological operation appears to be a propaganda campaign including slogans aimed at a political enemy in order to get them to activate toward and achieve state interests.  For our purposes “state” interests is interchangeable with patriarchal interests and refers to male interests and male power achieved at women’s expense while “propaganda” refers to American media including representations of so-called feminist speech.  Working backwards, we can see that once feminists (of all people!) started activating towards and achieving patriarchal goals, there was indeed a propaganda/slogan campaign that preceded it.  Also for our purposes, we can presume both causation and intent where the result of this propaganda campaign — women activating towards male interests — was completely foreseeable and besides, if men didn’t like the result of women activating towards male and against female interests men could’ve stopped or changed it at any time.  Of course they never did.

After writing about my experience with Western (patriarchal) medicine for a year now, where I have been robbed of my health and then faced oppressive social and political consequences of my disease that have nothing to do with being sick and everything to do with being an oppressed person under capitalism and patriarchy, I can’t help but conclude that American feminism has failed us.  It didn’t work.  After 100 years of feminist activating in the West, American women are still fucked and being fucked (and fucked over) in every way imaginable and it’s not primarily about voting and husbands and money anymore if it ever was but about men having wrecked our entire country by now with male-made nuclear contamination > makes everyone sick > Western medicine is 100% under male and patriarchal control.*

That is the reality in which women and feminists find ourselves in 2019 and there is simply no way around it.  While it is true that “if you don’t have your health you don’t have anything” and that therefore, in taking our health men have taken everything from us, the effect on American women of our lost health goes beyond even that: the full-scale contamination/unhealthfulness of our food, water and air means that no matter what we do or don’t we are likely to become ill and/or saddled with caring for ill dependents.  And our rather unavoidable illness and that of our dependents will funnel us into men’s abusive Western medical machine that will chew us up forever and there is not a good goddamned thing we can do about it. 

To wit, once we or one (or more) of our dependents become sick, as we are the caretakers of our own and our families’ health it is primarily women who will be subjected to medicalized patriarchal control including medical surveillance, i.e. required examinations, “check-ups” and the like.   Likewise it is women who will face restrictions on our movement and speech including required regular contact we cannot opt-out of including on behalf of sick children and social taboos against criticising Western medicine and those in the medical profession generally including “heroic” and authoritative doctors, nurses, hospice workers and others.

And as it’s primarily women who suffer from confounding untreatable, incurable and progressive diseases such as autoimmune disease, primarily women will be forced to liquidate our assets (if we even have any) to pay for medical care for ourselves and others including so-called alternative medical care that is also under male control and is therefore fundamentally necrophilic and unlikely to heal us.  Western medicine also notoriously causes iatrogenic illness and injury and makes us worse over time necessitating more interventions and so on.  And if we have no assets, and most women don’t, we must submit to grueling, ineffective and even toxic and dangerous Western medical interventions in exchange for disability-based benefits if we are literally to survive.  This medicalized patriarchal control over women and our dependents (and therefore over women in multiple ways) is overlapping and complete.

Get it?  Despite decades of feminist activating, American women are now completely and demonstrably under male control via the Western medical machine that requires and enforces our submission/compliance on every level and which cannot be avoided once we become ill, and we are nearly assured of becoming ill due to men’s policy and practice of ongoing severe environmental pollution.  For our generations of activating women have been granted unfreedom of thought, speech, privacy, movement and our material survival is left completely in the hands of our oppressors — men.  That patriarchal control over women is now complete means that, despite superficial appearances, American women are now completely disenfranchised and that therefore, American women’s oppression is worse now than ever.  Doesn’t it? 

How and why did this happen despite women’s and feminists’ best efforts including generations of feminist activating?  In hindsight, considering that women’s failing health is what seems to have finally, effectively shored up male power in the West, our so-called feminist movement seems to have played a significant part where feminist women were duped early on into trading our historical and indeed natural dominion over food, water and matters of the “home” (in other words, the literal necessities of life) in exchange for the money and consumerist power needed to buy those things from men.  And when considering the elements of a psy-op, it would seem that any pro-woman intent of the American women’s liberation movement was thwarted when American feminism was reduced to a slogan — slogans being a tool of propaganda and psy-ops — in this case slogans of “equality” and specifically economic equality, where money, as I understand it, was only ever a scam designed to fool oppressed people into trading things that are inherently valuable (such as land and gynergy) for worthless paper.  Think about what that means.

Money, and therefore economic justice and economic equality, is and always was a trick and we fell for it, where what women actually wanted — to survive and thrive on our own terms rather than being used and abused by men — was reduced to an equality sound-bite and one that actually defanged if not completely reversed the meaning and goals of feminism which was women’s liberation from male power.  In short, women were duped via feminism into relinquishing our birthright of actual, meaningful control over the necessities of life — our natural right because we create life — in exchange for positions in the pubic workplace for which we were paid worthless paper.  And that tradeoff was and still is what we and everyone thinks “feminism” is all about.  As perhaps the final insult to our intelligence and our freedom, women were convinced by slogans to desire spending-power (consumerism) where the only thing worth buying is land, and where perhaps the original intent of the money-scam itself was trading worthless paper for inherently valuable real estate.   Despite alleged economic/financial successes for women via feminism, land/real estate in particular remains so “expensive” (meaning that it takes so much economic and other power to purchase it) that it’s still out of most women’s and women’s collective reach.

Of course, land ownership is of particular import to women where large tracts of land are more or less required to grow food, and where ownership rights (at minimum) are needed to keep men out and to prevent them from poisoning the land, and by extension the food, water, the air and us. Women’s large-scale ownership (meaning control) of land is exactly what women do not have and it is unlikely at this point that we ever will.  The modern trend of “independent” women purchasing tiny homes on tiny (or no) plots of land, where they still purchase contaminated food, water and the necessities of life from men and are still under the jurisdiction of Western medicine when we become ill from it seems to punctuate the feminist misstep and is where generations of the feminist psy-op has left us.  Ironically, these relatively large (for women) tiny home or even flat/apartment purchases often strain women’s meager resources beyond the breaking point, leaving us even more vulnerable than we would’ve been had we saved our money and remained renters with a landlord to cover property taxes and expensive or unexpected repairs.   And on it goes.

There is surely more to say about the feminist psy-op and about Western patriarchy’s final, successful domain over women via Western medicine and I have said quite a lot about that control in the articles on this blog.  For now, as I am posting this on a symbolically relevant day, I will end this post with a thought on International Women’s Day.   Considering our history and our failures, which include our apparently abject failure to liberate American women from male control, I really think Western and particularly American feminists should probably shut the fuck up about feminism already because we clearly have not a single clue what we are doing and that we have failed, where we have failed, and why.  At this point, if other women around the world have managed to retain control over their own food, water and/or medical care they are doing much better than we are and it would probably behoove us to listen to those women, emulate them as much as we reasonably can, and to not pretend for one second that we are doing any better than they are, or that those women need our brand of “feminist” help.  That’s just not the reality of our situation or theirs.

*I also blame GMO’s and their appearance in the American marketplace in the 1990s which more or less coincided with our nationwide epidemic of obesity and autism/ASD where both obesity and ASD are known to be inflammatory conditions and therefore autoimmunity related.  And the epidemic of autoimmune and immune-mediated diseases has only worsened since then and affects primarily women.  But for purposes of this post I think focusing on nuclear contamination will do.  Nuclear contamination also causes genetic defects in plant- and animal-based foodstuffs — and in us.

[ibisfarrow]

How More Progressive Advertisements Have Contributed to a More Progressive Society

(Essay from my 2018 sexuality and gender studies class)

Historically advertisements and television have been used to reinforce traditional ideas of gender and sexuality, ignoring the changing times, in order to promote ideas that they believe will bring them the most support. The true effect of media and its ability to sway the masses was not utilised, instead it may have done harm by further promoting conservative ideas and isolating those who didn’t fit quite their standards, making them feel even more like a minority. Huang & Hutchinson assert that ‘persuasive communication’ is a key component of advertisement, so historical ads have not only used this method to persuade the public to buy certain products, but also strengthen any traditional ideas presented (2008, p.98). Would feminism still be considered such a dirty word if there wasn’t consistent ‘hostility from sections of the media,’ such as the various anti-feminist postcards available in the early 20th century attacking the suffragist movement (Curthoys 1994, p.16)? And would people still be insisting that ‘there were no homosexuals in the Australian armed forces’ if it weren’t for the large number of hypermasculine, heteronormative enlistment posters (Willet, G. & Smaal, Y. 2013)? Recently there has been a change in the way media and advertisers view controversial and taboo topics such as gender and sexuality, many having realised how beneficial supporting progressive ideas can be for their business through the attention it can bring. This essay will be addressing three different ways business have used progressive ideas in marketing and the effects it has had both on the business itself and the related cause/group, and along with this it will give a brief history of Gay representation in television, it’s critical reception, and how this influenced the directions of future TV shows.

During and prior to the 2017 marriage equality postal-survey many businesses put posters in their windows announcing that they were voting ‘yes’. This served two purposes, firstly, it was a show of solidarity towards the LGBT+ community; and secondly, it was a marketing ploy. Not only did it aim to make the businesses appear more welcoming to queer customers, and therefore be chosen over their competitors, but it also drew media attention to many of the companies, such as the various businesses mentioned in a Broadsheet article, which included big name corporations like Amazon, eBay, Testra, and Wordpress, as well as a plethora of small cafes and restaurants. An entire article on Techly was devoted to a Melbourne Subway store after it started printing pro-marriage equality messages on its receipts, which increased sales exponentially. Of course, I am by no means saying these acts of support were bad or selfish, even if they led to financial gain, because they likely had a hand in the postal survey’s positive results. The constant presence of the ‘vote yes’ posters may have caused what is known as the socialisation effect, a form of herd behaviour which is described by Teraji (2003, p.162) as when we are ‘influenced in our decision making by what others around us are doing’ and is a common way that humans deal with ‘environmental uncertainty’, meaning that those who were undecided on which way to vote may have chosen to vote ‘yes’ because the advertisements made it appear like the most popular option. This demonstrates how advertising’s recent indulgence of more controversial issues can both benefit the company and make society more progressive.

The first openly gay character on primetime television was the one-time character Steve (Philip Carey) on All in the Family. Steve appeared in the episode ‘Judging books by covers’, which received extreme backlash, with at-the-time president Nixon even stating in a 1971 interview that he ‘had to turn the goddamn thing off’ because homosexuality should not be glorified ‘anymore that you glorify whores’ (RICHARD NIXON TAPES: Archie Bunker & Homosexuality 2008). Despite the outrage, the episodes high rating, historical significants and praise from the gay community – which was still fairly new in the public eye – broke the ice, in a sense, and in 1972 The Corner Bar introduced the first ever recurring gay character in a primetime television show, Peter Panama (Vincent Schiavelli). Peter was largely criticised by the gay community, who saw him as little more than an offensive caricature, but that didn’t change the fact that producer Allen King was trying something that no one had had the courage to try before.

In 1994 Ikea began running the first ever television commercial to feature a gay couple, which showed the pair discussing how they met and their differing tastes in furniture while picking out a dining room table. Despite it’s late night runtime (beginning at 10pm), the ad still saw quite a bit of backlash, particularly from religious groups, with Reverend Donald Wildmon calling for an Ikea boycott and one New York store facing a bomb threat. According to an LA Times article, the Ikea headquarters were flooded with ‘hundreds of phone calls and letters’, mostly complaints but also some commending the company for its open-mindedness (1994). This wasn’t the first advertisement to feature openly gay individuals, however it was the first TV commercial to do so. It broke the ice, in a sense, and opened the door for more ads starring gay individuals. A European study on the impact of alcohol advertisements on teen drinking habits found that ‘exposure to televised alcohol advertising was found to be a significant predictor of drinking behavior’, meaning that, according to their research, teenagers who were exposed to alcohol advertisements were more likely to consume alcohol. Multiple other studies have made this same connection between tobacco advertisements and cigarette smoking in youths. While there have been no studies done on the effects of gay couples in commercials, it can be assumed that this advertising exposure effect can be applied to pretty much everything that is advertised. While gay people in ads cannot turn people gay, like so many religious organisations fear, it does normalise it and may, in the same way alcohol ads promote drinking, promote acceptance of LGBT+ individuals. Along with the increase in support for the LGBT+ community, these ads have also put pressure on other companies to create more inclusive advertisements – or at the very least remain quiet about their prejudices. A bakery that refused to serve a lesbian couple in 2o13 was forced to close its storefront and move online soon after the controversy, then close completely in 2016 due to continued backlash and poor sales brought on by their discrimination. It’s unlikely their actions would have prompted such outrage if it weren’t for other companies promoting the acceptance of the LGBT+ community. Up until 1994 the only times homosexuality had been mentioned in television advertisements were in fear-inducing Public Service Announcements about HIV/AIDS that directly or indirectly blamed the disease on ‘the depraved activities of homosexuals’ (Sendziuk, P. 2003, p11), such as the way the 1987 Australian AIDS PSA (Grim Reaper Bowling) specifies that ‘at first only gays and IV users were being killed by AIDS’, an unnecessary distinction considering the ad itself is about how anyone can contract it (Grim Reaper [1987] 2006). The ways LGBT+ rights are treated on television has a direct impact on how the public sees the matter, and so advertisements that normalise the LGBT+ community help to foster an accepting society.

Disney Channel’s live-action series ‘Good Luck Charlie’ went down in history as the first kid’s show to depict a gay couple, with the 2014 episode ‘Down a Tree’ showing the protagonist’s parents entertain a lesbian couple while their toddlers have a play-date. This episode aired near the end of what was already confirmed to be the show’s final season, so the writers did not have anything to lose from this decision. Reception for the episode was mixed, but ultimately the positive outweighed the negative and other series have followed Disney’s example. Since 2014 three non-Disney series have featured LGBT+ characters and relationships, and Disney has made history a second time with Andi Mack, a live-action show that features a gay main character. Each of these series has received media attention and polarising receptions, leading more people to discover the shows and increase their ratings, while also making queer children feel more comfortable with themselves by finally having characters to relate to.

In 2015 Target made what some considered to be a bold move by removing gender labels on their toy aisles, an act that elicited outrage from many conservative parents who didn’t seem to trust their own children to pick gender-appropriate toys without this signage. These complaints changed nothing, and soon Kmart and Toys ‘R’ Us followed Target’s example. While these stores still pack all of the traditional boys and girls toys in separate aisles, there are no labels, and so nothing to cause shame in children who wander down what some might consider the wrong aisle. This change coincided with a societal shift that brought gender politics into the spotlight, with both Caitlyn Jenner coming out and the transgender bathroom debate reached the US courts that year. This demonstrates the company’s understanding of social issues and willingness to take risks in order to appeal to a more evolved, modern audience then their previous store set-up. This became even more apparent in 2017 when Target released an ad showing an adolescent boy with their nail polish, subverting gender norms in a way that no other mainstream company has done on Australian TV since. This change reflects how society itself is becoming more open-minded, and instead of playing it safe and pandering to conservative views, companies are realising how diverse their consumers are and altering their advertisements to be more relatable.  

To summarise, the ways companies advertise has moved from promoting safe and traditional values to more controversial, yet modern subject matters. This has not only benefitted the businesses by giving them an edge their competitors don’t have, but has also helped to normalise the different identities and lifestyles being featured in these advertisements, which in turn assisted in creating a more inclusive society. Changes in representation in television programmes has had a similar effect, reflecting our current society more accurately now than ever before, and therefore to normalising certain identities and more accurately representing society than ever before.

 Sources:

Willet, G. & Smaal, Y. 2013, ''A homosexual institution': Same-sex desire in the army during World War II', Australian Army Journal, vol. 10, no. 3, p.25

Curthoys, A. 1994, 'Australian Feminism since 1970', Australian women: contemporary feminist thought, p.16

Sendziuk, P. 2003, 'Anally injected death sentence: the ‘homosexual lifestyle’ and the origins of Aids', Learning to trust: Australian responses to AIDS, p.11

Huang, Y. & Hutchinson, JW. 2008, 'Counting Every Thought: Implicit Measures of Cognitive Responses to Advertising', Journal of Consumer Research, vol. 35, no. 1, p.98

Teraji, S. 2003, 'Herd behavior and the quality of opinions', The Journal of Socio-Economics, vol. 32, no. 6, p.162

Bruijin, A., Engels, R., Anderson, P., Bujalski, M., Gosselt, J., Schreckenberg, D., Wohtge, J. & Leeuw, R. 2016, 'Exposure to Online Alcohol Marketing and Adolescents' Drinking: A Cross-sectional Study in Four European Countries', Alcohol & Alcoholism. Supplement, vol. 51, no. 5, p.620

Pineros B. 2017, An Aussie Subway store is taking it upon themselves to fight for marriage equality, retrieved 19 September 2018, https://www.techly.com.au/2017/09/08/aussie-subway-fight-for-marriage-equality/

McDermott C. 2017, Australia’s Institutions and Businesses Are Backing Marriage Equality at Every Level, retrieved 19 September 2018, https://www.broadsheet.com.au/national/city-file/article/australias-institutions-and-businesses-are-backing-marriage-equality-every-level

McMains A. 2014, 20 Years Before It Was Cool to Cast Gay Couples, Ikea Made This Pioneering Ad, retrieved 21 September 2018, https://www.adweek.com/creativity/20-years-it-was-cool-cast-gay-couples-ikea-made-pioneering-ad-161054/

Horovitz B. 1994, TV Commercial Featuring Gay Couple Creates a Madison Avenue Uproar, retrieved 21 September 2018, http://articles.latimes.com/1994-04-05/business/fi-42403_1_madison-avenue

Tharrett M. 2016, Homophobic “Sweet Cakes” Bakery Finally Closes, Three Years After Enforcing “No Gays” Policy, retrieved 21 September 2018, http://www.newnownext.com/sweet-cakes-bakery-melissa-aaron-klein-closed/10/2016/

Grim Reaper [1987] 2006, streaming video, Paul Kidd, 22 November, retrieved 24 September 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U219eUIZ7Qo&t=2s

RICHARD NIXON TAPES: Archie Bunker & Homosexuality 2008, streaming video, rmm413c, 24 December, retrieved 28 September 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TivVcfSBVSM

Mitchell B. 2017, Who was the first openly gay character on TV?, retrieved 28 September 2018, https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2017/07/28/first-gay-lgbt-character-tv-show/

Poul Webb 2015, 'World War 2 Propaganda Posters – part 8', Art & Artists, weblog post, 1 June, retrieved 18 September 2018, http://poulwebb.blogspot.com/2015/06/world-war-2-propaganda-posters-part-8.html

Hobson, C. & Hobson, P. 1910, Postcard, University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls, Iowa

[bluegrasshole]

scrap #3

i’m almost certainly never going to go any further with these, so here they are. feel free to add on.

how larissa duan got her nickname, which was never really supposed to be a story about how larissa duan got her nickname. 

“Fuck, Duan, we gotta get you a nickname,” Holster says as he watches Larissa sink her ball in one of Ransom and Shitty’s solo cups. Shitty raises his drink to salute her before finishing it off.

“True. You’re a goddamn bro. You need a bro nickname,” Shitty says. Ransom sets up his shot and throws it, but Larissa immediately bends to scoop it out with her fingers.

“Hey! No fair! Girls are supposed to blow them out!” Ransom cries.

Larissa wiggles her fingers at him and winks, feeling warm and giggly. “But bisexuals get to do both.”

“BRO!” Holster yells, and tries to simultaneously fist-bump, high-five and hug her. He ends up looking flustered, open-mouthed, wagging his hands at her, and she laughs.

“Now that’s unfair,” Ransom grumbles. Shitty presses his hand over Ransom’s mouth so quickly there’s a slap! and then a pained grunt.

“Affirmative action, man. Let them have this.”

Larissa snorts when Holster passes a hand over his face to force it into a serious expression. “Okay, LD, like we practiced,” he says with a nod.

“Mmph!” Whatever Ransom is trying to say is muffled by Shitty’s palm.

“TRICK SHOT!” Larissa cries as Holster twists her around and lifts her up so she’s backwards and two feet taller. She closes her eyes to throw the ball -- it lands in the center cup. The small crowd that always gathers to watch the pong players erupts in cheers while Ransom falls to his knees.

“Oh my god. Oh my god. That was amazing. I’m dead. You’ve killed me,” he chants, face buried in his hands.

“Fuck. I’m upping my weight training for the next time we play together,” Shitty says. Holster winks and kisses his bicep, and Ransom swoons.

Larissa takes a bow. “Losers. You need to up your pong training if you ever want a chance at beating me.”

“Anything, Your fucking Pongness.”

Ransom stands abruptly. “Hey! What about Ponger! Pongo? Pongsy!”

They stop, thoughtful, then shake their heads all together.

“Naaah.”

“Don’t think so.”

“Doesn’t feel right.” This from Shitty, who shakes off the excess beer from the ball and hands it off to Larissa. “We’ll get there one day. Never leave a bro behind.”

Holster gasps. “Hey, Larissa,” he says, “we’re looking for a new team manager. Want me to put your name in with Hall and Murray?”

Because she likes hockey, and she likes these boys, and it’s Frosh Week so she really likes all the beer she’s had warming her from the inside out, she shrugs. 

“Sure, why not?” she says, and Holster lifts her up again in celebration.

“Fucking ‘swawesome.”

“All right, fuckers, sit down,” Shitty says, barging into Holster’s dorm with what looks like a reluctant Jack in tow. Larissa’s got her head on Ransom’s stomach, both laying on the floor, and Holster’s at his desk, headphones in, watching Cheers. 

“We’re already sitting down,” Ransom says, barely looking up from his Scientific American. They’re not high or anything, because it’s early Wednesday afternoon and they all have classes later, and it’s still too early on in the semester and in their university careers for them to say fuck it and skip. Though she doesn’t think Ransom would anyway, and Holster wouldn’t because what the hell would he do for an hour and fifteen minutes without Ransom? 

“Listen,” Shitty says, ignoring Ransom’s comment and throwing himself on the bed. Jack sits gingerly at the edge. “We need to get a lockdown on this nickname thing. I’ve brought Jack along to help.”

Larissa doesn’t really know Jack -- well, she knows what everybody knows, what Wikipedia knows, but other than that, not much. He’s older, already 21, and quiet, and he plays hockey, and Shitty likes him. She doesn’t even know what he’s studying. 

“You said we were going for a walk,” Jack says, staring at Shitty pointedly.

“Yeah, and we walked here, didn’t we? Oh, don’t -- we’ll go once the froggies leave for class, okay?” He’d memorized their schedules sometime last week.

Holster takes his headphones off and swivels to face them. “Okay, what have you got, then?” 

Clearing his throat loudly, Shitty pulls out a crumpled-up napkin, making a show of smoothing it out. “Possible nicknames for one Larissa Duan: Duano--”

“Oh, God,” Larissa mumbles. Shitty goes on unhindered.

“--Dutsy, Dusty, Lassy--”

“Stop, holy shit,” Holster says, jumping up and cross the few feet to rip the paper from Shitty’s hand. “These are all awful. What -- oh my god, I don’t even want to read these. I can’t look at them anymore.”

Ransom pushes Larissa’s head so it sits on his lap, and pushes himself up. “Bro, you’re forgetting the most important aspect of a nickname. It’s gotta be organic, right? Natural.”

“Goddamn, you’re right.” Shitty hangs his head. “You’re fucking right. What was I thinking? This manufactured bullshit will never be it.”

“Maybe she can just be Larissa. Like me,” Jack says, shrugging.

“Jack, your name’s not Larissa. It’s Jack,” Ransom points out, rather unhelpfully.

Larissa rises from Ransom’s thighs and holds herself up on her elbows, eyeing them each in turn with an eyebrow raised. “You’re all just gonna have to work harder.”

“Damn,” Holster says softly. “Never leave a bro behind.”

The late-night fro-yo runs have gained in frequency the closer they get to mid-terms, and this time she’s out with Emilie and Simon, who are the other occupants of her designated studio space. They’re second years who live in apartments off-campus, and Larissa likes them a lot. She thinks they like her too. They’ve got twenty-four hour access to the building, so it’s not unusual for one of them to scream FUCK IT past eleven, and drag the others to Simon’s car, sometimes stopping to pick up another friend or two in the rooms next to theirs, still splattered with paint and glitter and clay.

“I’m just saying that there’s gotta be a way to make the studios more accessible. Like I get that it’s an old building, but all those fucking stairs? And like, one elevator? Shit’s ridic,” Emilie says around a mouthful of spoon and chocolate yogurt, caramel dripping down her chin. Larissa knows all about the stairs -- and, though she’d never admit it, the elevator too. “I think we should write a letter to the department, get some signatures. At least get them to commit to look into it.”

“Mm, yeah,” Larissa says, scooping up a strawberry. “You should talk to my friend Shitty. He got the school to fix up the ramp at Faber last year, because it was pretty much falling apart.”

Simon laughs. “His name is Shitty? That’s unfortunate.”

“It’s a hockey nickname.” She shrugs. “Most of them have one.”

“Do you?” Simon asks. 

“Not yet. Maybe eventually. Hey, wanna trade bites?”

Emilie laughs and pushes her cup closer to Larissa’s. “Nah, just take some of mine. What’s the point of getting fruit when you’re going out for a treat, you know?”

Larissa scoops up half a spoonful of chocolate and caramel. “Hm. Not a lot of fresh fruit at the meal hall.” It’s only part-lie (she doesn’t stop to think about how big a part). “Thanks.”

Later, when Simon’s gone home and she and Emilie are back in their studio space (the building was converted from an old elementary school and there is still tape on the walls under jacket hooks with names like Sarah and Kevin and Tommy), Emilie asks her if she’s ever had sex. It’s not -- weird, really, because Emilie is like that; she writes sex-ed articles for the Swallow, wears shirts that say Consent is Mandatory, is part of the art school’s feminist collective. She and Shitty really would get along.

“Ever had sex?” she says, casually. Larissa notices she doesn’t ask if she’s a virgin -- Holster had, and Shitty had nearly yelled himself hoarse. 

“Yes,” she says. This one’s a full lie. She doesn’t know why she says it. Well, okay, that’s a lie too, because she knows. She definitely knows. 

“Do you, like, want to?” Emilie says. She’s at the sink washing off her brushes.

Yes, she fucking wants to. Social construct or not, it’d be a relief. And besides, she likes sex -- with herself. And she’s watched plenty of porn. Read plenty of porn. She figures it can’t be that hard -- vulvas aren’t as scary as dicks, anyway, even though she thinks she’d like both. 

Her heart is beating so fast she can feel it in her throat, in the back of her head, in her fingers, deep in the pit of her cunt. Pulsing.

“Like, in general? Sure,” she says, shrugging. She doesn’t look away from her canvas.

Emilie steps closer. “Well, with me. I just feel like we could use a bit of a de-stresser, you know?”

Larissa raises an eyebrow and tilts her head. “Smooth.”

She already knows she’s going to say yes, that Emilie wouldn’t joke about this.

“Hey, no hard feelings if you don’t want to.”

She measures the pause: enough for a breath, enough for her to seem like she’s considering it.

“Yeah, why not?” she says, and if her voice is a little higher-pitched than normal, Emilie doesn’t notice, grinning wide.

“Awesome. Put your stuff away and -- your place or mine?”

“Mine’s closer,” she says, stepping towards the sink, biting her lip. She concentrates on slowing her movements, because she feels like everything is spinning too fast, her heart beating beating beating. “And you’re in luck, I even made my bed today.”

Emilie steps into her space and stretches her arms around Larissa’s waist, drops her head down to her neck to kiss it. “We’re just going to mess it up again,” she whispers, her voice gravelly. Larissa’s breath hitches, like a silent hiccup.

“Jesus, Em. Impatient?” she forces out as Emilie’s hand sneaks under her shirt to rub along her ribs and stomach. Emilie laughs into her ear.

“I guess. I’ve been feeling really tense, ya know?”

“Mmm. Come on, let’s go.”

She tells herself it’s not a big deal, that she won’t make it a big. People have sex all the time. Good sex, even. Because it was -- good sex. At least, she thinks. But Emilie said so after, said that it was fun with a wide smile before she picked up her clothes off the floor and left only a couple bobbypins and the scent of fucking behind. Like, not a big deal. 

She texts the group chat anyway, approximately five minutes after Em leaves. 

Guess who just had sex, she writes. Resists adding a couple exclamation marks. Hides it under her pillow after she sends it. 

She’s kind of -- well, naked. And sticky. And is debating the merits of a shower when her pillow buzzes.

YOOOOOOOO SWAWESOME, from Shitty.

Then two seconds later, Ransom: Brah! Me too!

It’s a Tuesday night, Justin, Holster writes. You have class tomorrow morning!

So does LD!! Ur just jeal of us. Ransom answers. She hides her face in her pillow even though no one’s around to see her blush. 

Congratulations, Jack answers a few minutes later. It almost sounds sarcastic, and maybe it would be from anyone else, but Larissa has noticed Jack doesn’t really do sarcasm all that much. He’s probably being sincere.

She decides against showering for reasons she doesn’t really want to delve into but can probably be summed up to wanting to hold onto whatever feeling this is for as long as she can. Her phone lights up again when she’s trying to find sleep -- she really does have class early in the morning.

What about Larry, Jack writes, for the nickname.

She laughs to herself in the dark. Thanks for trying, she types out, but I don’t think so.

Maybe when you’re middle-aged and balding? from Holster.

I’ll hold onto the idea, she says, then puts it away, smiling. She’s still smiling when she wakes in the morning.

[knightofbalance-13]

We all are.

http://dudeblade.tumblr.com/post/163386771476/i-am-so-tired

Yeah, we all are, you two. Well, not me. I find this kind of logical deconstruction fun.

I am so tired of being told that I have to be The Good Gay™ and take all the homophobia and harassment and beatings and everything with a smile on my face in order to be respected. That I have to be grateful when someone laughs in my face because they noticed me!

Okay, let me break this down quick:

1. Yeah, you do have to fight for it. Respect is not entitled to you, it is something you earn. You earn people’s respect by doing the right thing, by being cool headed and logical in debates, by enduring. You can’t just have respect handed to you: That devalues the concept. Yeah it sucks but welcome to life.

2. What homophobia? What Harassment? What beatings? I’ve never seen that around here and if it is as common as you say it is, then surely you can prove it. How do I not know you are just crying wolf for attention or trying to make yourself look like a victim to do whatever you want or maybe you were being a dick about something that is only tangently related to your sexuality at best? Without context and proof, why should anyone listen to you?

And if it’s not happening directly to you: Then don’t talk abut it as though it is personally happening to you. Especially if it’s not happening in your country since who knows what the other country is like and the way you talk groups all of humanity together which we are NOT a hivemind.

And what does being a “good gay” actually entail? because with you Invested, it could mean anything from “taking abuse” to “not screeching homophobia at everyone who doesn’t exactly agree with you.” Because I have seen you attack people for saying you are looking too deeply into stuff when you YOURSELF agreed you were looking too deeply or when a content creator just thinks shipping has gone out of hand (http://invested-in-your-future.tumblr.com/post/161686615570/wait-can-i-ask-what-the-issue-with-murderofbirds). And BTW: Being called a bigot in this world of ours is worse than being black or LGBT or whatever, especially since minorities are treated as not being ABLE to be bigots and that the “majority” should just take the abuse with a smile.

Because unless you are one of The Good Ones™ who always is nice no matter what kind of privileged bullshit Straights™ keep spewing, then you are literally a demon for daring to feel awful and to want to have equal rights.

Exactly that: equal rights. Equality. That just means that people should stop caring about you and treat your argument about your sexuality and race the same as everyone elses: Nonexistent. People stop giving a shit about what you are both ways and treat you as WHO you are. And considering this is the type of person who screams homophobia at everyone who disagrees with you (including members of your own community!)

And you talk about the “privileged bullshit Straights” when you used a similar statement to be sarcastic about the situation with the Good Gays, meaning that you are being malicious towards straight people the same way you perceive malice being directed at LGBT people, especially since the context of this post stells me you want every straight person to support whatever you do because you are LGBT: You are literally being a bigot the same way you say people are being towards you. A straight person calls you out for calling a series creator(s) homophobes for not pandering to you immediately and not supporting your attacks on them? Well, then they are a bigot and not being a Good Straight and is wrong.

You want equal rights? Okay then: You are a liar since you lied about JAC’s video being anti-LGBT when it was anti-shipping, you tried to portray Murderofbirds as being a homophobe when eh just dooesn’tw ant to get into the whole shipping debacle. (http://invested-in-your-future.tumblr.com/post/161686615570/wait-can-i-ask-what-the-issue-with-murderofbirds) as well as lied about them being involved in the BMBLB controversy. Which brings me to my next point: you act like BBLB is being homophobic when this exact same thing happened to Black Sun shippers so by your logic it would be equal because they did it to the biggest hetero and homo ships in the fandom. (http://invested-in-your-future.tumblr.com/post/162372941890/you-know-its-funny-people-keep-claiming-rt-is-so) You misinform people by saying the person is calling you a crazy feminist when they were just asking you why you have to act like everything is political and they don’t want politics in their media, which is good considering how blatant politics ruin media. You are a hypocrite in saying that there are homophobes in the fandom when the top ships in the fandom are LGBT (Bumblebee, Sea Monkeys, White Rose, Freezerburn, Lady bug, Monochrome, Nuts and Dolts) and you are seen as weird for not shipping LGBT, a big compliant in the fandom is no LGBT characters and the big names are LGBT. You act like you are entitled to representation and such even as you attack and insult whereas if someone criticizes you, they are labeled with one of the most dangerous labels in our society. None of this is because you are LGBT: I would say this all to a straight person. What is going is that you are just not a good person and it becomes associated with your sexuality because you force the two together.

Its kind of hilarious because it all stems from the very same heteronormative bullshit of “normalcy” - unless you conform to the privileged heteronormative society and say “thank you, kind sirs” for every hit, the Straights™ will go out of their way to shame you and claim you are not normal or you are dangerous.

Heterosexuality IS normal: it is literal the norm being about 75-80% of americans at most  (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_sexual_orientation#United_States / http://www.alternet.org/sex-amp-relationships/19-percent-americans-dont-consider-themselves-heterosexual)  and  around 5% at least (http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/us-adults-overestimate-homosexual-population-much-tenfold) fact is: being heterosexual is normal. Not being hetero isn’t bad: it just means you’re not normal. And that’s not a bad thing for sake.

And homosexuals DO have more rights in some aspects than heterosexuals: If a baker doesn’t want to bake a cake for a heterosexual couple, no one would bat an eye. But if not for a homosexual couple, a controversy is created. If a straight person is stereotyped, it’s fine but you can’t be stereotyping gay people. This comes right down to phobia: homophobia has a lot of stigma behind it whole many people refuse to acknowledge heterophobia. Straight people are not the only privileged people on the planet.

And guess what? You, Invested, ARE dangerous. Not to straight people but to your own brethren. You keep talking this way, acting this way, speaking this way and thinking this way soon enough people will give up on trying for representation and equality because they will think the LGBT community is unpleasable and just not even bother anymore. And at time, real bigots will come in and take that one step further and start taking your rights away again. until the world you are talking about actually happens.  All because you keep asking to be treated specially and differently instead of equal.

Well you are goddamn right I am dangerous threat to society - I have ALL episodes of Orphan Black and L Word on DVD and I am not afraid to watch it!

... You’re an idiot. That has nothing to do with the topic at hand. And if you want t live in your little bubble for the rest of your life: Well, humanity won’t be missing much except for another bigot,

And now for...Dudeblade.

The “Normies” should be afraid of disgruntled minorities. They should be very afraid. Nothing is scarier than a person who wants equality, and has nothing to lose. This is why the Civil War happened people. The African Americans weren’t going get their equality by being The Good Black™ and taking all the shit that they took back then. Why should the LGBT+ Community be the same?

First off: These people are not like African americans back then: They have rights now. They have equality now. Now, they are asking to be treated like delicate angels who should have whatever they want. And they are going to fuck it all up for everyone. Stop defending these people, Dudeblade: you’re just making things worse.

And you’re right they didn’t get their equality in the Civil War. Ever heard of Jim Crow laws? Segregation? the Grandfather Clause? All happened after the Civil War and all limited the rights of africian americans. The time they got their rights was, shocker, the Civil Rights Movement in which they acted EXACTLY the way you mock. The only thing that extremeists got in that time were fear and their cultural counterparts: When the Black Panthers went to far, the KKK rose up as a result. Do you WANT an LGBT version of the KKK? because that is what will happen when things go too far.

[jillmckenzie1]

Gender Equality Mechanics–Bikes Together

I may not believe in God, per se… but I do believe in bikes.

I used to be an ardent believer in God until, through what I suspect are very common experiences, I came to understand that the attributes assigned to God by mainstream theologies could not, by any sound logic, coincide in the same entity. I suppose this is where that notorious “leap of faith” comes in, but instead of leaping, I chose to quit believing and then started having a lot more fun. I quit believing in the mainstream interpretation of God, that is. What I switched to is the understanding that what religions offers humans is the spirit of community and a network of caring and support. What G/gods there may be, they lie within and between us.

Bikes are a splendid example of a thing that unites a community and offers a network of caring and support. Cities that plan and build for bicycle transit have a higher quality of life. People that ride bikes are happier than those that don’t. Bikes are the closest thing we can get to human-powered flight. This last statement is subjective, but I stand by it. Bikes are not God per se, but they are goddamned fun!

This premise might come across as a bit hokey; clearly, bikes are not omniscient deities. But I really do believe in the power of bikes to do really important things in the world. For example, bikes are a major point in feminist history. They changed the world for women by:

Giving women a freedom of movement that they didn’t have before. Before bikes, if you wanted to go somewhere, you either walked or you hitched up your horse and buggy. Horses and buggies being very expensive to acquire and maintain and very physically demanding to handle, most women didn’t go places.

Giving women privacy in their movements. Bikes lent themselves to cheaply and quickly going long distances without a chaperone, so that women could do God-knows-what with God-knows-whom.

Spurring clothing reform and releasing women from the prisons of corsets and mandatory sartorial haystacks. It’s hard to bike in a corset. I’ve tried.

Normalizing women’s athletics. Bikes required women to physically exert themselves in public and to set their delicate lady parts down on a phallic-shaped bicycle seat. *insert matronly pearl-clutching*

In an interesting side note, because of all these points, bikes were very sexualized. There’s a long and lovely history of bicycle-themed pornography and advertisements for bikes featuring scantily clad women and women in scenarios of sexual implication, which was tremendously forward for its time. Bikes changed the world for women. I love them for that.

They still change the world. We modern folks contribute enormous amounts of our time to the quasi-religious devotions of commuting and computing. We lose track of being outside, even in the splendor of Colorado. Bikes return us to the outdoors. I love biking in “adverse weather” and feeling the rain, wind, and even snow on my body. It reminds me that I’m an animal on this planet and the protections of the built environment are only ephemeral privileges. When I’m old, I want to look back and say, “When I was young, I biked in the rain.”

Bikes also connect us with our communities. Cars isolate us in mechanical bubbles, unable to interact with others. Bikes keep us in immediate contact with other people moving through the environment. I can talk to my neighbor as I roll by on my bike. She thinks I’m crazy, but I wouldn’t know that if I never talked to her, would I?

I make an effort to contribute to my small, local bike shops rather than larger chains because I really do believe in this cycle-based community. Randy’s Recycled Cycles and Totem Cyclery, as well as Velowood Cyclery, are all great, independent shops. The one I really want to encourage you to connect with though is Bikes Together. Bikes Together (formerly the Park Hill Bike Depot) is a non-profit devoted to promoting a better Denver through bicycles. Which is a pretty sweet mission statement, eh?

Bikes Together has two locations. I stumbled across the Park Hill location a few years ago and immediately loved them. They’ve got a big, open shop with a friendly storefront and a full-service mechanic area. The other location is in Mariposa, with a similar set-up and some rockin’ bike parking spaces out front. What makes them different from other bike shops in town is their focus on getting bikes to people who need them. Getting kids onto bikes is a particular delight for them. They’ve got a program called the Bike Rodeo which connects low-income kids to a bicycle education and safety class and a free bike. They’ve also got two week-long bicycle summer camps for youths. If you’re not a youth anymore, they also have programs to buy or earn an affordable bike. These people really do act out their conviction that bikes are important! If you don’t know how to fix or maintain your bike, they have classes and open shop time for you to learn from experts and practice on your own bike, tools and bike stands provided. You can come in cold turkey, having never turned a wrench in your life and only being vaguely sure of how many wheels a bike should have, and they’ll teach you how to fix whatever problem your bike’s got.

Here’s the bit that really sold me on Bikes Together: They offer bike mechanic education programs specifically for women and marginalized folks. Bicycles changed the world for women and Bikes Together is continuing that powerful tradition. They’re called GEM nights, “Gender Equality Mechanics,” and they’re specially for women, trans folks of all kinds, girls, gender non-conforming folks, and “femmes of all stripes.” I’ve walked into many bike shops around the country and I can count on one hand the number of female mechanics I’ve seen. Let’s teach women/femmes to take charge of our own bikes! Cycling is hard for women. We’re held to a different standard of appearance and behavior, which is hard to maintain on a bike. Sweating while female is frowned upon. Women’s clothing can be tricky to manage on a bike. Carrying large packs with changes of clothes and a helmet adds another layer of difficulty to manage in the workplace or even a recreational gathering. We get catcalled and harassed. (I’ve anecdotally noted that I get at least twice as many harassing comments when I bicycle commute in a skirt or dress than when I cycle in pants (that whole a-woman-on-a-bike-is-sexualized thing from the early advertisements hasn’t gone away). Let’s all of us GEM-worthy people get together and support each other and our right to cycle!

One last thing: you can support this amazing program by patronizing their shops, volunteering your time, or financially donating to them. One quick and easy way I’ve found is to set them up as my Amazon Smile beneficiary. Amazon Smile is a Jeff Bezos’ program that donates a portion of your Amazon purchase amounts to the charity of your choice. “Park Hill Bike Depot” (Bikes Together’s former name) is an option. Check it out and support your local cycling community! You may even find that the endorphin high from supporting your community and/or cycling to the top of Lookout Mountain feels an awful lot like a religious experience.

from Blog https://ondenver.com/gender-equality-mechanics-bikes-together/

[grannygremlinaudio]

Leaving Copenhagen :(

Definitely did not have enough time here and will have to come again - in any case The Wiff has some more family here that we were not able to meet so pretext.

What I love about Copenhagen/Denmark:

- It's a stereotype, but everything really is designed so well... except for the street grid which is is a goddamn rat king, but that's cuz it's hundreds of years old (some of those cobbles are a bear to walk on).

- There is an (unofficial I assume) comic/manga/games/toys district. And most of the shop clerks were femmes which was refreshing. Great selection in both Danish and English ( they had all of Attack on Titan in English, I totally spoiled the TV series for myself by flipping through the one volume I picked off the shelf)‎. Danish graphic novels are sexy fyi, which in hindsight, should not have been a surprise.

- The food. Smørrebrød, herring, tartare (the one I had at Bar’vin is a contender for the best I have ever had and I make a point to get some in every city I visit, only one other, from Vancouver, is a potential superior) and just the best breads.  Also great markets.

- You can legally drink anywhere anytime. They have 7-11s and there's chilled single tall boys inna back (wine/cider too if beer ain’t yer thing).

- Everything is a short walk away from everything else‎.

- For the exceptions to the above, just rent a bike. There's a rental spot (any bike shop; more than one public bike share service) on every other corner and very good biking infrastructure ( paths and dedicated lanes on major arteries).   The rules take some getting used to and nobody locks up to anything so much as securing the drive wheel from movement, most often with integrated locks.

- Due to the exchange rate you just feel so baller all the time ( 100 DKK is about ‎ 20 CAD).... prices after conversion are a bit more ( not that much, but depends what we're talking about, and where you buy it; serious tourist markups exist so pay attention to prices as you go).

- One of the most no nonsense airports I have ever encountered ( also has  a Lego store.... but Lego is cheaper back home somehow so don't buy any).

- The museums are great‎ ( especially loved Louisiana, which is a trek out of town, but worth it; had a great Abramovic exhibit on).

‎- Nothing is rotten in Denmark ( at least anymore), but they do have THE Hamlet castle. Again, a bit of a trek ( when I say that I mean you need to take the regional train to the sticks) but pretty cool. As you walk around they do scenes from the play, but a bit interactive with the audience ( e.g. in the climactic royal gala /duel scene the audience is used as the visiting dignitaries the King/ Queen are speaking to and greeting). The Fool complimented me on my beard and called me m'Lord [blush].

- Everyone is so nice and helpful and generous... except the teenagers, but that's not a surprise, dem always surly‎ and to be fair it's grim up north.

‎- Pretty feminist culturally. This will sound a tad superficial but waddaya want in just 4 days. Ladies hardly wear makeup ( for day to day, special occasions and when they feel like it... and no, this is not just some dude not knowing what light/natural makeup is, even The Wiff, who doesn't wear much herself, noticed... it is a stark contrast to Slavic Europe and even NA), ‎mostly wear pants and generally just do their own thing just like the boys (see above re women managing/working in fandom-based shops, but not just that)... There was also that time I saw "The Future is Female" graffiti right on a main street. I'm sure it's not all post gender but the difference to NA was palpable.

- Surprising amount of POC (2nd gen; integrated) and it's cool ( I know there are some neo- whatever people there with the migrant/refugee debate all over the continent but you don't see them in the city‎ or they know they're outnumbered and STFU; among the youth it's def solidarity though).

- LGBT+ positive, I think. I mean with Scandinavian fashion/ design they all look gay (joke!), and I know their Pride is later this summer so we didn’t see that or any discussion about it, but seemed like a non-issue when we asked around a bit. Again, not an easy thing to gauge in 4 days and our informal ‘survey’ was hardly a representative sample.

- Maybe I don't pay enuf attention back home‎, but it was the first time I have heard a good modern dub set.

- Wonderful selection of vintage instruments ( historically they were able to afford them) as well as new ones in the shops I managed to pop in to.

- Apparently by 2020 (or something) they will be fully converted to renewable energy ( we asked around because we saw the wind farms from the plane on the way in)‎.

-The canal lyfe.

See separate posts coming later regarding the Tartare and music gear.