puttingherinhistory

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Just so we're clear, y'all do know that it's okay for a person/organization/group/ect to focus their time/energy/resources on just one issues or just a small handful of issues, right? You do you know that not everyone can focus all their time and energy and resources on every single issue, right? You do know that being expected to pour time/energy/resources into every single issue is how you get spread too thin and get burnout and then that person/organization/group becomes useless for helping out any cause, right?

I know this used to be a popular talking point, but recently I've been seeing it spring up in posts and notes a lot, things along the line of "oh I stopped supporting or caring about (insert environmental activism group) because they never did anything about human rights" or "oh I stopped caring about and supporting this human rights group because they never said or did anything about animal rights" ect. ect.

You do know that's why different organizations for different issues exist, instead of just having one mega organization that addresses all the issues ever, because more gets done when you can just focus on one thing instead of having to focus on everything, right?

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I think a lot of people need to come to terms with the fact that neither Europe or the U.S. are monoliths and both have a great deal of diversity from region to region, so a lot of these sweeping generalizations like "Europe is more progressive and equal than the U.S." are going to have a million exceptions to them.

There are cities and states in the U.S. that are very progressive about LGBT+ rights, and there are whole countries in Europe where gay marriage is still illegal and even parts of Europe declaring themselves "LGBT free zones". There are cities in the U.S. with decent and reliable public transportation, and there are places in Europe with public transportation so shitty that it's barely usable. There are states in the U.S. with accessable abortion on demand, and there are countries in Europe where abortion is banned.

So when you make these sweeping generalizations about how "Europe is more progressive and equal and open minded than the U.S." you're really going to have to be more specific because there are so many exceptions to that.

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Most people have absolutely no fucking empathy for the way it affects you to survive an abusive relationship. Most people have absolutely no fucking empathy for what the symptoms of PTSD do to you.

I had to work various food service and retail jobs right after I escaped a violently physically abusive relationship, and that mixes together just about as well as having to work a strenuous physical labor job right after having both your arms broken. But it was my only option if I wanted to pay the bills and keep food on the table.

Of course customers would get aggressive and hostile with me, of course customers would scream while their faces were red with rage and slam their fists on the counter or even try to physically threaten me. And of course given my very fresh and very untreated PTSD I'd freeze and/or fawn and break down afterwards. Even just moderate aggression like a raised voice or a forceful attitude could send me into freeze/fawn because my brain had just spent years being taught that even something as moderate as a raised voice or a forceful attitude meant I was in physical danger if I didn't back down.

And when my co-workers would witness me freeze up in front of a screaming hostile customer the reaction would range from anywhere from annoyance at how pathetic that was of me to later bragging to me about how much better they would have handled that because they're so much tougher and more assertive than me and needed to preen about that. Instead of even bothering to think about why I might be reacting the way I was or trying to empathize they could only jump on the opportunity to judge me as weak to make themselves feel better about themselves.

Or a friend of mine who I distanced myself from after I saw how she reacted to her sister's behavior after leaving an abusive relationship. Her sister was of course afraid of her abuser and afraid of confronting him about custody matters, and my friend would always talk about how frustrated she was with her sister for being "so childish and such a scaredy cat". She knew her sister had just been abused, but all she could do was judge her sister for being "weak" and get mad at her sister for her "weakness".

I have spent years in therapy and have regained a lot of my confidence and assertiveness that I'd lost from the abuse. But it still stings in all sorts of ways when I think of how people reacted to my behavior after I'd just escaped the abuse. How everyone's, and I mean everyone's, reaction to seeing me freeze or fawn or break down when I encountered aggression or hostility was to judge me as weak instead of having any understanding at all, and this includes people who knew I was fresh out of an abusive relationship.

If someone had just broken their arm and couldn't carry anything with their freshly broken arm, any normal decent human being's reaction would be to understand why they couldn't carry anything with a freshly broken arm, and any normal decent human being wouldn't expect them to. It's widely understood that if you judged them as pathetic and weak for not being able to carry anything with a freshly broken arm, and if you started preening about how you're so much stronger and better than them because you can carry things with your unbroken arm, that this makes you a colossal fucking asshole and a generally bad person.

Imagine if we could actually approach mental/emotional injuries, like PTSD from a physically violent relationship, with the same understanding.

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Excuse me while I sound like a crotchety old geezer for a minute here

I've seen this attitude pushed more on social media that "kids and especially teenagers are naturally defiant and naturally want to upset and piss off adults and parents and teachers need to just accept this and deal with it" and tbh, I don't agree. I don't remember wanting to piss off or upset anyone on purpose for fun as a kid or teenager.

What I do remember is that when I was getting a budding sense of morality and justice I would stand up to misogyny / racism / homophobia or general cruelty from adults and/or peers and it would usually be dismissed as "oh she's just at an age where she wants to be rebellious for the sake of it, she just wants to defy adults for fun because she's at that age" and that logic was used to dismiss it.

Likewise the same logic was being applied to kids, I'm talking especially privilged kids like the white kids and the boys especially the cishet boys, with budding cruelty that was a result of unchecked privilege. Like boys being grossly misogynistic and homophobic, "oh he just wants to be rebellious and piss off adults, it's fine". Do you see the issue of brushing the behavior of marginalized kids who are developing a sense of justice with the same stroke of privileged kids being cruel and bigoted? Oh that they're both just being rebellious and trying to get a rise out of you and it's fine just ignore it don't try to actually address it or do anything about it?

I think kids and especially teens usually have more complicated reasons being their behavior than "oh it's hard wired into their biology that they just HAVE to be defiant for the sake of it at that age" and using that logic prevents adults from actually having to think about and address the root of their behavior.

It also lets adults off the hook from actually having to do something about dangerous behaviors kids and especially teens do, like binge drinking until they have to be hospitalized. "Yeah it's just normal and natural because they have to be rebellious and make stupid decisions at that age, it's just hard wired into their brains that they gotta" is just fucking lazy. When I was at that age I understood drinking until I blacked out and needed to be taken to the hospital was bad and should be avoided because adults in my life had taken the time to explain to me it was bad. I was actually capable of rationalizing "hmm, alcoholism and alcohol poisoning are bad and I should avoid those things" and being warned against it did not tempt me to go out and drink dangerous amounts. Why the fuck would it? That makes no god damn sense and is just a lazy excuse not to actually teach kids better in a way they can understand.

Also I mean sure, part of it is laziness, but I also think some adults are so scared of looking like the buzzkill killjoy to young people because they're afraid of aging and actually having to look like a grownup. A lot of this is our culture's worship of youth and demonization of aging, so a lot of people are really scared of looking "out of touch" from the youth and really want to look like the cool hip understanding adult.

But also part of this is privileged adults wanting to protect the behavior of privileged kids. Just rebranded "boys will be boys" if you will. Of course an adult man is going to say "oh come on he's just a teen, teens are gonna be stupid and want to break the rules" about a teenage boy behaving in a reckless and cruel way. Of course white adults are going to say this about white kids behaving in a reckless and cruel way. They got away with it when they were teens so of course they want the same for today's youth who share their privilege.

Anyway it's time to stop being lazy caregivers. Kids aren't a bunch of stupid animals that just have something hard wired into their brains telling them to break rules and be defiant with no deeper motivation to their behavior than some "rebellious defiant" hormone in their brain mindlessly controlling them. It's degrading to oversimplify their behavior like that, they are human beings after all. There are almost always going to be deeper reasons for their behavior, most often that they're an underprivileged kid with budding morality and justice, or that they have a privileged background that has resulted in their more reckless and cruel behavior going unchecked. If you're someone who is a guardian or caretaker over kids and teens you do actually have a responsibility to exam the deeper reasons behind their behavior and address it instead of just dismissing it at "oh well it's just their weird hormonal teen brains commanding them to break rules and be rebellious without any deeper reasoning, time to just ignore it and not take it seriously"

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[puttingherinhistory]

i love having hairy legs it’s like i just get cooler and sexier by doing nothing

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The rage boiling within when I'm told "Only caring about your own rights is how you lose them" by people who only pretend to care about one minority (and sold them out anyway).

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Cant believe this needs said but just because you can technically call anyone a b*tch or a c*nt doesn't make them gender neutral. You can call a white person the N slur, which white people often do if they think another white person is acting 'trashy' or 'low class', or a straight person the F slur, which straight people often do if they think another straight person is being too gender non-conforming, and it doesn't stop words from having specific targets and connotations. Stop playing dumb, you know it's misogyny.

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Parents get sooooooo mad when anyone even remotely implies that if we know it negatively impacts adults then it’s probably quite detrimental to the health and development of a young mind to stick an iPad in front of a child any time they show signs of Behaviors. “Are you calling me a bad parent?” Yeah. I am.

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With April Fool's day approaching, here are some basic prank guidelines if you want to be sure your prank isn't going too far and actually being a jerk instead of being funny:

First and foremost, definitely avoid anything that could result in bodily harm to the prankee and/or yourself.

Anything that causes severe emotional distress, like faking what would be a traumatic event if it was real. "___ died, April fool's no they didn't" or "I am divorcing you or breaking up with you, April fool's no I'm not." are cruel and going too far. If it could make them cry it's going too far.

Speaking of causing severe emotional distress, triggering phobias isn't funny. What's the difference between jumping around a corner and shouting "boo!" at your friend (who you know well enough that they'd be okay with this) vs. shoving a real live spider in the face of your arachnophobic friend while they cry and plead with you to get it away from them? With hopping around a corner and shouting "boo!" there is a second of their startle reflex being triggered, but then after a brief second of experiencing a startle reflex they quickly realize there's not actually anything to be afraid of, it's just their pal jumping and saying "boo!". With a spider in their face, that is something ongoing that is bringing them distress and alarm, if they have aracnophobia there is no "aha okay so there really is no danger" no, even if they logically know that a house spider can't actually hurt them their brain is still flooding them with "danger!! danger!!" signals and seriously distressing them, which isn't funny, and just makes you cruel and sadistic.

And speaking of "startle reflex" jokes and pranks, such as jumping out from around a corner and shouting "boo!", be careful with who you do this to. Not only do some people involuntarily hit people who startle them (so you could get yourself hurt from this), but not everyone finds these funny and in good taste. Especially if someone might have a heart condition or certain types of trauma. Sometimes close friends and family members are okay with doing these kinds of pranks to each other, but a lot of people don't like them and find them to be rude or even cruel. It would certainly be rude to do this to a stranger for the reasons listed above (potential heart conditions and/or PTSD)

Do not disrupt people trying to do their job and/or tamper with their ability to do their job. Do not call emergency services and try to prank emergency services, this could actually cost lives. Do not be mean to service workers and/or create messes and other unnecessary extra work for them. That is rude. They already have to deal with constant verbal abuse from customers all day every day and are not being paid enough to deal with that + you throwing a drink at them through the drive through window that they have to clean up now. I'm not going to say that pranking someone on the clock is always wrong/rude 100% of the time, I think there is some nuance here, especially between co-workers who are aware of each other's workload and what would be too disruptive. But you should never create extra unnecessary work for someone (such as cleaning up a mess you made) and you should never disrupt or tamper with their ability to carry out their job. And most of all, never be mean in your "pranking".

In general, a good rule of thumb for a good prank is that both the prankster and the prankee should be laughing and amused after the prank is completed and revealed. If the prank ends in only the prankster laughing and feeling amused while the prankee is upset / distressed / angry after the fact, I would personally categorize this more as bullying than pranking.

Please feel free to add on if anyone can thank of other guidelines for April Fool's pranks.

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Little cultural differences

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there are actually TWO countries that have used nuclear weapons in war. the second is france, which did “strategic nuclear testing” in algeria during and after the algerian war of independence.

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i don’t want to achieve equality by sinking to men’s level, i want them to get on ours! why should i have to unlearn the conversational art of waiting my turn, unlearn sexual self-restraint, unlearn trust in others’ good intentions, unlearn the impulse to cater to others’ needs, just to have a chance at success among savages? why can’t the men learn some fucking manners so we can all conduct our affairs in a civilized manner? i shouldn’t have to stop saying sorry, you say sorry!

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I will never ever understand why anyone would want to make another human being upset on purpose. I never have and never will understand the appeal of "getting a rise out of" another human being. I will never understand why some people find joy or amusement over another human being's suffering and distress.

And the fact that this behavior is so widely acceptable and tolerated really is the root of so, so many problems. Sexual assault and abuse wouldn't be so rampant if this behavior wasn't so socially acceptable, you can't change my mind. Today's "he's just trying to get a rise out of you because he thinks it's fun to make you upset, but it's not a big deal and it's completely harmless that he likes to make you upset for fun" is tomorrow's rapist and/or abuser.

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Okay, this might be an unpopular opinion, but if you want to combat the spread of misinformation then you have to let go of any belief that people not talking about an issue means that they don’t care. The only way to reduce the spread of misinformation and disinformation is to research claims before you spread them, and there is so much information constantly being thrown at people through social media and the 24 hour news cycle that it’s impossible to fact check every claim. The same can be said about AI generated images, if you look closely then you can notice certain tells that something is AI generated but no one really has the time to analyze every single image that crosses their path.

If we expect people to talk about and spread information on every social/political/economic issue that occurs then the result will be that people will spread misinformation/disinformation because they will not have the time or mental capacity to research every single thing that happens on Earth just to make sure that they aren’t being fed incorrect information.

Only researching claims that set off a red flag or seem incorrect doesn’t actually do much to prevent misinformation, because there are plenty of claims that will seem correct on the surface or that will align with your view of the world that you won’t think to research. You have to research every claim if you want to avoid misinformation, and you can’t research every claim made by someone online.

The only solution is to accept that some people aren’t going to talk about certain issues, not because they don’t care, but because they have chosen to focus on other issues for the time being and don’t want to talk about an issue that they don’t know much about. And we really need to stop treating that like a bad thing. If you spread yourself too thin then you’re not going to accomplish anything. It’s actually good to have people devoting themselves to learning about and fighting a specific issue, that’s how progress is made.

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the main problem i have with america is that nothings old as hell there. i cant be so far away from a castle it damages my aura