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“When she applied to run in the Boston Marathon in 1966 they rejected her saying: “Women are not physiologically able to run a marathon, and we can’t take the liability.” Then exactly 50 years ago today, on the day of the marathon, Bobbi Gibb hid in the bushes and waited for the race to begin. When about half of the runners had gone past she jumped in. She wore her brother’s Bermuda shorts, a pair of boy’s sneakers, a bathing suit, and a sweatshirt. As she took off into the swarm of runners, Gibb started to feel overheated, but she didn’t remove her hoodie. “I knew if they saw me, they were going to try to stop me,” she said. “I even thought I might be arrested.” It didn’t take long for male runners in Gibb’s vicinity to realize that she was not another man. Gibb expected them to shoulder her off the road, or call out to the police. Instead, the other runners told her that if anyone tried to interfere with her race, they would put a stop to it. Finally feeling secure and assured, Gibb took off her sweatshirt. As soon as it became clear that there was a woman running in the marathon, the crowd erupted—not with anger or righteousness, but with pure joy, she recalled. Men cheered. Women cried. By the time she reached Wellesley College, the news of her run had spread, and the female students were waiting for her, jumping and screaming. The governor of Massachusetts met her at the finish line and shook her hand. The first woman to ever run the marathon had finished in the top third.”

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Ernestine “Tiny” Davis and Willie Mae “Rabbit” Wong, members of the International Sweethearts of Rhythm, in Europe on the USO Tour in the 1940s. There were several lesbians in the band, including Tiny Davis (no mention of Wong as lesbian) but love this pic so much! Tiny on trumpet, Rabbit on baritone sax ✨ #lesbianculture #internationalsweetheartsofshythm #qpoc #blacklesbians #tinydavis

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why cant women be people

I like art that depicts women not posing seductively or gracefully but simply existing as human beings.

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Sinead O'Connor by Andrew Catlin; 1988

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I'm trying to move past my need for male validation but it's hard any tips?

Remove mirrors from your home. Spend less time in front of mirrors. If you find yourself checking in on if you're crying in an interesting way, or lounging in a pose, or monitoring your facial expressions or vocal expressions even while alone - consciously do something outside of the male gaze. Wail loudly instead of cry politely, lounge comfortably and sprawled with your stomach bunching up, make a funny face or a weird noise. We have an internalized male gaze, and being aware of it and beginning to fight it, consciously name it, can be an actionable first step to begin dismantling the need for male validation.

The other ways to fight it take a little more time, and are a little more difficult. Spend more time with women instead of men, prioritizing relationships with women in your life to get community and personal validation in your life. Take yourself on dates, to spend individual time with yourself. The goal is to be happy with yourself, to have that validation primarily come from internal sources. We can help this process along by spending time on our own hobbies, getting good at something, and cutting down on self criticism. Don't be mean to yourself. Talk to yourself how you would talk to a child. A lot of adulthood is self-parenting - how do you want to be parented? Treat yourself that way.

And if you find yourself seeking male commentary on your appearance, or male attention, check in on yourself like you would with an intrusive thought or with a child seeking something unhealthy - acknowledge it, explain to yourself in your own head why you don't need that/shouldn't seek that, and forgive yourself for the thought (this process shouldn't bring shame!!) by saying "part of my healing is checking in", and let it go. Take note of what makes you seek that validation - a bad day? A personal insecurity? An interaction with an older man? Don't be afraid to analyze the roots so you can better heal.

I hope this helps!

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seeing women on here still using “ppl who have periods” “people with uteruses” “people who have abortions” like…..grow up and say women already. it’s not a slur. nor derogatory. get a backbone. say women and stop skirting around the word like some weirdo. women women women. it makes sense. it’s straight to the point. it naturally rolls off the tongue and it’s that easy. so many vague, alienating and frankly dehumanizing phrases all just to say the single word women/woman. stop it.

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Cream

“There is only one thing this guy and I both agree on.”

Her mother rolled her eyes. “And what is that?”

“Neither of us want to marry each other.” She replied, leaning forwards over the afternoon-tea table, placing enough of her weight on it that the table tilted, and the cakes all came sliding towards her, leaving cream on her bodice.

Her mother sighed heavily, righted the table and placed the tea pot and china back down. “I can understand his point of view.”

She bit her lip, hard, trying to ignore the feeling of the cream soaking through the fabric and touching her skin. Her mother’s disappointment was a weapon frequently used against her, an effective one as it could reduce her to silence or tears depending on the situation.

“Felicity!” Her mother called, leaning back in her chair and yet managing to unbalance anything.

Felicity, the maid, appeared almost immediately as if she had been waiting to be called. “Yes, ma’am?”

“Please escort Poppy back to her room and try to remove the cream from her dress.” She turned an unimpressed look on her daughter. “I would prefer it if that dress could be worn again.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Felicity repeated, stepping back and looking patiently at Poppy.

“Take the back stairs,” her mother added, standing up and sweeping out of the room, “I would prefer that no one else sees her like this.”

Poppy bit her lip again, even harder, trying to keep back the tears that threatened to spill.

“This way, miss.”

She followed Felicity into the kitchen, not bothering to worry about her posture or how she walked for once. At least, she didn’t originally, but all eyes turned to them when Felicity led her into the kitchen and she instinctively straightened up- any of these people could report back to her mother.

“Come on.” Felicity caught her elbow and steered them towards one of the sinks, where she wet a cloth and began to carefully dab at the cream on her bodice. Her corset was probably ruined by now, this wasn’t the first accident she had experienced.

The staff side-eyed her as she stood there, murmuring among themselves, things she could not hear. The cooks were preparing food for dinner, the other maids were cleaning utensils as they finished being used or preparing the oven and fires. The stable boy glared at her as he walked by to speak to someone, furious enough that she flinched, hard enough that Felicity looked up from her work to follow her gaze and sigh.

“Don’t worry about Henry, miss, he is in a vile mood at the moment.”

“Why?” She asked, dropping her gaze back to the maid in front of her.

Felicity sighed again, rinsing out the cloth. “The one he loves is forced to marry another.”

A reversal of her own situation, Poppy thought, and the words spilled out of her before she could think. “Who is it? Maybe I could help? Attempt to break up the engagement?”

The maid blinked at her, as if surprised that Poppy even had it in her to offer to do nice things for other people, and then shook her head ruefully. “We do not talk about who holds Henry’s heart.”

“Why?”

Felicity dabbed at her chest a little harder, knocking her off balance and de-railing the conversation as Poppy nearly fell into the sink.

“Felicity,” she prompted, “why?”

“His desires are not… appropriate to talk about.” She wouldn’t meet her eyes.

“Who is it?” Poppy asked again, she had a quiet idea of what Felicity was implying. “A man?”

Felicity’s hands jerked, as if she was not expecting Poppy to say anything of the sort. “Yes. So, you understand…”

She turned her head again to see Henry, he was smiling at one of the scullery maids, cheerful surrounded by friends but his face fell back into the angry scowl when he noticed her eyes on him.

“It’s me.” She said, unable to look away from him. “I’m the one his love is forced to marry.”

The indifference with which her fiancé treated her now made sense, the way he argued with everything she said, acting as though they could not agree on anything. She pulled herself out of Felicity’s gentle hold and went over to Henry without thinking. She was doing too much of that today.

“I’m sorry.” She found herself saying. “I don’t want to marry him but my mother refuses to let me break off the engagement.”

Henry blinked at her, dumbstruck.

“Just tell me,” she pleaded, “does he really hate me or was he just trying to get me to leave him?”

Henry glanced down at the floor. “He was trying to make you hate him. To break it off.”

“Does he have horses?”

Henry and everyone else she could see around him looked back up at her, bemused, it was a rather abrupt change of topic.

“I- yes?”

“Because….” She glanced around briefly, trying not to run away with the weight of everyone’s eyes on her, “because we will of course need a stable boy and my horses are most comfortable under your care, so…”

His face softened in front of her, an unexpected smile breaking through the clouds. “Yes, I would like that.”

“Very well, it is decided.”

“I need to speak to him.” Henry added, a minor amount of panic on his face as he bolted from the kitchen, leaving the door swinging behind him.

Standing there, in the middle of the kitchen, wearing a dress that was equal parts sopping and covered in cream, Poppy found that she was looking forward to the future for the first time in years.

Based on the prompt in bold by @givethispromptatry​

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Men shouldn’t be making laws about women’s bodies.

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The fisherwoman and the mermaid 😳💚

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Roe v Wade died last night. Am I losing my mind—where is the outrage? Where is the media? How do we fight this??

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there is literally no sound on earth more annoying than a man when he’s trying to do a “female voice.” literally i will cut your vocal chords out of you if you don’t shut up

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my friend said that whenever she has a bad feeling about her body/appearance, she asks herself “who profits off of this emotion?” and i really love how simple and incisive that is

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“Why are TERFs so obsessed with people’s privates hm?” 🥴

That’s a thoughtlessly callous argument when you consider that women and girls make up 100% of pregnancy by rape victims while 100% of the perpetrators are male. Or the fact that male sexual violence against women and girls is classified as a wartime weapon of terror. And that every single one of us realized before we were grown that males constantly think about what’s under our clothes, and we have to adapt and alter our routines our whole lives hoping for the best. So when a woman expresses discomfort about a male in our spaces, smugly insinuating that she’s the pervert or predator is the wrong fucking move.

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May you find exactly what you want at the thrift shop, in your price range, next time you’re there.

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The way he ended the incels was so attractive to me

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“REVOLUTION: it’s just a kiss away ⚢” from the feminist periodical everywoman vol. 2 no. 10, july 1971

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i feel like we dont talk enough about how two of the most decorated female hockey players ever, one a former captain for team canada and the other for the usa, fell in love and had a baby together