#and criticised other women for poor behaviours too

[trans-wojak]

women bitch about misogyny so much meanwhile 99% of "misogyny" is women not getting special treatment lmfao (relevant examples: https://archive.ph/IUzLD http://breakingthescience.org/RichardGelles_MissingPersonsOfDV.php)

Honestly, a lot of the time they (feminists) accuse men of misogyny for very mundane things and it’s annoying because

1. They engage in full blown misandry all the time and pass it off as ‘acceptable’ because women have experienced gender based oppression or play it off as “just joking” (which is exactly what they get mad at men for doing)z

2. They can contribute to women having irrational fears. Most violent attacks on other people are experienced by men. But feminists will try to have you believe women are having a fucking genocide by lone strangers. I’m not denying women experience a huge amount of violence, especially through DV but men do too, it’s just not socially acceptable to talk about. Even in cases when the woman is the aggressor, the police are gonna arrest the man most of the time. Women face more rates of intimate partner violence but we also don’t know just how much men face it cause it’s not documented as much.

3. I agree with gender equality/equity. But part of that includes remembering that not everything is misogyny, I’m sick of being told EVERYTHING trans men face is misogyny instead of the fact there is deadset transphobia aimed at trans men. Some of it is misogyny yes, but some of it isn’t too.

4. While it is true misogyny is prevalent in society, there’s a double side to it - women get more sympathy for poor behaviour. When they commit crimes they are more likely to gain lesser punishment because “it’s a poor woman, she wouldn’t have known better.” Yes that’s misogyny but denying that it benefits them is redundant - considering they always point out that the patriarchy always benefits men.

5. A lot of them aren’t consistent with beliefs. Pro choice but only for those with uteri. If a man wants to give up parental rights for a child he never wanted, they tell them they’re losers who shouldn’t have sex/use a condom/get a vasectomy. The same talking points used against women who want an abortion. I’m aware that abortion is wayyyy different to payments for child support but at the end of the day, telling men they can’t have sex if they don’t wanna pay for a baby is against body autonomy.

6. They like to accuse me, a trans man that the only reason I do X or Y thing is to look “more male”. They think trans men should act “more female” because they still see us as women. I’ve lived as both a man and a woman, they both have disadvantages in life. We can acknowledge this without making it a pissing contest. Women face sexism yes. I’m not gonna deny that at all but my criticisms of some women aren’t invalid just cause they face oppression. That’s not equal.

7. I don’t know if it’s my autism or not but I honestly just see everyone as people first, gender is second. If I’m in a room of mostly women or mostly men, I don’t really pick up on it until later. The only time I notice (cis) men more is when they’re all bigger/taller than me and it makes me dysphoric lol. I treat women the same way I treat men. This includes not acting like women need to be coddled just for being women, so I won’t change the way I speak for them i.e online feminists being mad I talk crass and say cunt a lot.

[lunar-years]

everyone has different interpretations of scenes, but for real that scene with jamie and roy was just plain sexist. roy seriously said "i don't know if we're getting back together because she's a woman and you never know". like what the absolute fuck was that line? they showed up to her house condescending, completely unapologetic about their behaviour, and treated her like a trophy prize. she deserved to beat them up. jamie and roy have always been troubled characters, but they were never (not even in season one) sexist assholes. the show went out of its way multiple times to establish that even when they made mistakes it was due to personal insecurity and not misogyny.

and whenever it was something misogynistic, it was heavily criticised as such, which, in this episode, it was not. a lot of people did seriously not catch the blatant sexism of it at all and went "that's how these men act" (again, what the fuck?). jamie spent season three being respectful of roy and keeley's breakup and not making a move on her, out of consideration of roy's feelings. roy, who knows how abusive jamie's father is, probably better than any other male character on the show, physically assaulted him. despite the fact that throughout the season roy has been approaching jamie with affection, realizing that's what he needs to feel secure (complete disrespect to 2x08 too, one of the best episodes of the series). and while we're on the topic of violence, roy and jamie were never this violent with each other, even when they hated each other's guts. jamie, who gave keeley a truly heartfelt apology about the leaked video, making a point to not victim-blame or engage in literally ANY other sexist behaviour, just brings it up to upset roy in a dick-measuring contest. and one episode ago, one fucking episode ago, they were all getting along, keeley and roy were obviously trying to get back together, and jamie wasn't one bit bothered by it. they were holding hands on his bed and he saw them and smiled! regardless of whether you think the roykeeley arc was rushed (i do), jamie might have been heartbroken or sad, but he wasn't, not once, established as jealous of them. and this entire season was devoted to roy and jamie becoming friends by slowly growing comfortable around each other and actually trusting each other. every single one of those things was thrown into the trash. and yeah, sure, progress isn't linear and perfection isn't possible for people, but that WAS NOT regression. roy and jamie were never sexist dicks. those were two completely different characters.

ALSO, this scene normalizes the idea that it's perfectly forgivable to revert back to sexism whenever emotionally distressed, even if you are generally not like that in your life. it's not. in reality, you're either sexist or you're not, and doing this in one scenario will absolutely mean that you will be sexist in different scenarios too. nobody in real life will be sexist in some areas of their life and feminist in others. implying that this isn't the case shows a very poor understanding of feminist theory and ted lasso has more or less done a good job at not being sexist. i feel like this really excuses unacceptable behaviour that the show itself tells us, with rupert particularly, has very real consequences that perpetuate violence against women. to me, the light-hearted resolution of that whole scene was terrible and poorly written at best. people in the writers' room typed that scene, read through it, and did not find it weird at all. though it's not the first time in the third season, see: forgiving jamie's dad and far-right bigots (???).

and lastly, when people were asking for a love triangle resolution, they meant something fitting for the year of our lord 2023. healthy communication and conversations, mutual respect and love between the charactets, maybe even polyamory (3x11 had a great ot3 set up, too). nobody meant we wanted something from the fucking 1950s. literally the only worse way this could have played out would have been if keeley ended up with the one that caused the other more damage. legit disgraceful ending for roy and jamie as characters, and for the show as well. considering everything it has stood for so far.

(i'm sorry if this reads like i'm calling people out, i'm not, really, i'm just very mad. and also really sad, because i did not go into the ted lasso finale expecting unaddressed sexism. like that was Really Very Bad. for this show especially).

woahhh there's a lot going on here, anon. For anyone wondering, I'm assuming this is a response to this post of mine. While I don't mind discussion or being called out... this does feel like something that could've very well been your own post or an open response to mine instead of an anon note. Because if you've read my meta, you'll probably already know I'm not going to agree with you on this.

Just gonna drop a few short thoughts because I don't have energy to write a think piece when my broader thoughts are already contained in my original post:

I'm not sure where you think I was trying to excuse their words or pretending they weren't being sexist or like they weren't treating Keeley as a weapon in their own games or a prize to be won. I think there's a difference between excusing someone's actions versus trying to understand where they were coming from for the characters and where they are at now.

"while we're on the topic of violence, roy and jamie were never this violent with each other, even when they hated each other's guts" Roy & Jamie were literally beating each other up in the locker room and brawling right out there on the pitch in season 1, anon.

"Keeley and Roy were obviously trying to get back together, and Jamie wasn't one bit bothered by it." this is just not true. Roy was trying to get back together with Keeley. Keeley wasn't shown to be reciprocal (beyond sleeping with him, which is a repeated pattern of behavior for her on the show, and something she in fact did with Jamie in season one), and Roy misinterprets it, as Jamie misinterpreted it. In fact, I'd argue Roy deciding it was a good idea to try and make him and Keeley happen right there in Jamie's bedroom with Jamie crying to his mum one room over, shows he wasn't thinking about Jamie, not when it comes to Keeley. Roy wants what Roy wants and he assumed he was going to get it. And Jamie went through a whole journey of expressions when he opened that bedroom door, so I don't think it's fair to say he "wasn't one bit bothered." I think we've established at this point Roy and Jamie both love Keeley and have always been weird and jealous about it with the other.

"this scene normalizes the idea that it's perfectly forgivable to revert back to sexism whenever emotionally distressed" this scene didn't normalize anything, because the show immediately acknowledged that Jamie and Roy were both in the wrong and had Keeley rightfully kick them to the curb for it. The narrative was not that this is okay or acceptable behavior. I definitely didn't see the scene as light-hearted

"nobody in real life will be sexist in some areas of their life and feminist in others." i am a woman who considers herself very much a feminist. That doesn't mean I've never had moments of internalized misogyny or made harmful comments that buy into a patriarchal narrative, despite myself. Well-intentioned people make mistakes. We are all works in prog-mess trying to get through life as the best people we can be. Jamie and Roy, in my opinion, are fictional iterations of the same principle. I don't think this comes even close to destroying their entire characters in the way you are implying.

All the best x

[bella-goths-wife]

Mommy dearest?

Father lost boys x reader

The boys were at it again. They manipulated some poor soul into believing that they wanted to be with her forever, and she fell for it.

You didn’t however. You had seen hundreds of these girl. The girls who would come into the boys life and by extension your life and then die off a few months later. You couldn’t do it anymore.

This latest girl, Lola, had been a particularly tricky person to get along with. She was head over heels for the boys, she wanted the whole marriage and children ‘white picket fence’ life with them. And you disrupted that.

The boys had spun a story of you being David’s child who he had with star when they were teenagers. He acted like the doting father scorned by star who ‘kept you away’. In actuality you were staying with max while they tortured the poor girl and you visited on weekends.

Lola sympathised with David’s struggle but she still saw you as a threat. She saw a little fourteen years old girl as a threat. So she was continually rude to you when the boys weren’t around.

She would criticise you and call you “mini wife” as she saw you as something that connected David to star and she saw you as competition.

You weren’t bothered by her words, you knew she wouldn’t last long. She was temporary, that’s what the boys would always say when you asked about the countless women who would come into your life and act motherly towards you. You despised it, you had a mother who cared for you more than anyone else did.

She had also suggested that you call her mommy, which was insulting in its own way. She had claimed to the boys it was about respect but you knew it wasn’t. You knew it was about humiliating you and disregarding star

Lola would do anything to get your fathers attention away from you and onto her. There was one incident which included her passionately kissing Dwayne while you were next to him while making eyes contact with you so you would get uncomfortable and leave. She would do anything to have you out of the picture

“You should visit your father more” she had announced when she swanned into your room and stood in front of your bed “it’s disrespectful to him as your father when you only see him on weekends”

Who was she to lecture you? She was your fathers prey and yet she thought she could come to you and discipline you for something that wasn’t your doing. You didn’t choose to stay with max while she was there, you were told to to avoid seeing Lola being murdered.

“I’ll see if I can” you humour her act of fake motherly concern “I’ve just been busy lately”

“Too busy to visit your father?” She asked in a condescending tone

“I’ll work on it” you said calmly to avoid her drama.

She simply stormed out of your room and slammed the door on the way out like a child.

You thanked god that she would only last a month, you didn’t know how long you could handle her for until you snapped and hit her

———————————————————————

Lola did not last a month, she lasted three. All while you and star stayed at maxs and she lived with the boys in the cave.

You wondered why your parents had kept her around longer than the other girls, when you asked they would just tell you that they enjoyed playing with their meal. But the came they incident that sealed Lola’s fate.

She had swanned into your room once again and had taken a personal vendetta against your clothing. You usually dressed yourself like your fathers and they never seemed to have a problem with it. Lola did however, she saw it as ‘unladylike’ and thought it her place to comment on it

“I’m not throwing them out lola” you said, pointing to the band shirts on your bed that star had gotten you “my mom got me them and I like wearing them”

“How many times have I told you to call me mother” Lola whined like a child “it’s extremely disrespectful to me”

You sighed at her childish behaviour and chose to stay calm to avoid drama

“You not my mother Lola” you stated calmly “your just dating my dad”

And then came the action that Lola would soon come to regret. The sound of her slap echoed across the cave walls and eventually reached your fathers sharp ears as they jumped up to see what was happening. You cheek was bright red as tears built up in your eyes but you refused to cry for this woman.

“Don’t talk to me like that you little brat” Lola screamed in you face “I won’t be disrespected by a weekend guest”

“What’s going on here” Dwayne asked as he entered the room with the boys in tow as he glared at Lola menacingly.

Marko approached you and softly held your bright red cheek while soothingly rubbing it and inspecting it.

“You shouldn’t coddle her so much” Lola snaps at Marko before turning to David “your making her spoilt”

“Is that so?” David said through gritted teeth “why don’t us and the boys go talk about it in the other room?”

Lola nodded in affirmation before leaving the room as the boys followed. David shot you a wink so you could know what would happen to Lola very soon before leaving.

You sighed as you readied your Walkman and headphones to drown out whatever noises would come from the cave.

———————————————————————

The familiar scream of terror came around an hour afterwards and filled you with a familiar sense of dread.

What you didn’t expect was the ferocious banging on your door. The boys never usually let their prey escape. You decided to humour her and hopefully alert the boys of her whereabouts.

You opened the door to find a snivelling Lola on your doorstep. She had blood gushing from her neck as she desperately cradled a clearly broken arm to her chest. She looked at you with a pleading look in her puffy, bleeding eyes.

“Please (y/n)” she quietly begged as she clutched your clothes to bring you closer out of desperation “please help me”

You sighed at her pathetic attempt. She had tears covering her face while she cowered into you. She clutched you tighter and whispered “my baby” over and over again

“Help me escape baby” she quietly begged and prayed “I can be your mommy if you help me”

She looked pathetic while she cowered and held onto your younger body like you were her saviour. You knew she was using you, she wouldn’t treat you like her own if you helped her escape. She wasn’t like star. Star claimed from the first week she met you that you were her her child even if you didn’t come from her womb. She was your mother, not this snivelling coward.

But even if you knew she was using you, you were tempted by her offer for a minute. A life without the boys abuse, what would that even look like? You loved your fathers and they were good to you most of the time. But the other times were filled with possessiveness, manipulation and emotional abuse. Was it so wrong for you to want to leave?

You hugged Lola back slowly as you felt sympathy crawl up your spine and enter your heart.

That quickly changed when you shoved Lola back and she hit the hard chest of Dwayne who held onto her tightly.

She begged and screamed for you to help but you just looked her in the eyes and felt the sympathy melt away.

“Bye bye mommy dearest” you said sarcastically as you shut the door in her face.

You heard her screams of agony and chose to drown them out with the music recommendations you had received from Paul.

You didn’t feel guilt for what you did to Lola. In fact you felt relived that you didn’t have to put up with her anymore. Maybe there was some David in you deep down.

You couldn’t help but smile that the boys protected you. Little did you know they would kill anyone who hurt you or tried to take you away from them.

Including yourself.

Thought id show you guys readers more cruel side that she got from her father, let me know if you wanna see more of this Side to her :)

Hope you guys enjoyed

Love ya ❤️

[luxe-pauvre]

In No Contest: The Case Against Competition, Alfie Kohn describes “pseudofeminism” as seeking “the liberation of women through the imitation of men.” It is a compounding of two assumptions: first, that gender differences are tied to character differences, and second, that the character types associated with men are more valuable, or even critical, for success. Of course, it’s not just women who are imitating men; it’s men too. Emmy Noether, Florence Nightingale, Yvonne Brill, and the women of Bletchley are just a few examples of how women have been successful without necessarily emulating the behaviour of men. Unfortunately, to counter the effect of women being valued only for traditionally acceptably “feminine” pursuits, there is a tendency then to celebrate them for being the opposite. There is a recent glut of books celebrating women who were “just like men,” emphasising that women can do everything men can do, or emphasising traits that are not the traditionally “feminine” ones. Their titles include words like “headstrong,” “badass,” or “rebel,” and I fall over them anytime I look for books about female role models from history. Sheryl Sandberg’s book Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead seems to urge women to adapt themselves to the (male-dominated) business world in order to be successful in it. It has been criticised in many ways, and one is that it seems to assume that in the current structures women can succeed if they just try harder, regardless of built-in sexism, racism, and other inequalities of access. And “trying harder” all too often seems to consist of trying harder to behave like successful men. I don’t think our aim should be to show that women can be “just like men.” I don’t think we should have to imitate or emulate typical male behaviour in order to be successful. Jessa Crispin includes this in her bracing takedown of some common forms of feminism: “a fight to allow women to participate equally in the oppression of the powerless and the poor. Making sure women can do all the things men do is some sort of progress but it doesn’t necessarily represent or cause a great leap forward for all other women. Sheryl Sandberg’s approach has been criticised as a “trickle-down” version of feminism. Having Margaret Thatcher as prime minister didn’t exactly bring about the end of discrimination against women in the UK, and the glass ceiling is alive and well despite her apparent shattering of it. Asking women to behave like traditionally successful men assumes that that sort of behaviour is crucial for success. It is what I referred to [...] as the assumption “Y is important for Z” where Y is some quality that men are perceived as having more than women do. Thus if women want to be successful, they must learn quality Y — that is, emulate the men.

Eugenia Cheng, x + y: A Mathematician's Manifesto for Rethinking Gender

[amberfmp]

Anorexia

People who have anorexia try to keep their weight as low as possible. They may do this in different ways, such as not eating enough food, exercising too much, taking laxatives or making themselves sick (vomit). This can make them very ill because they start to starve.

They often have a distorted image of their bodies, thinking they're fat even when they're underweight.

Men and women of any age can get anorexia, but it's most common in young women and typically starts in the mid-teens.

Symptoms of anorexia include believing you're fat when you're a healthy weight or underweight, eating very little or missing meals.

Anorexia is usually treated with talking therapies, such as cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT).

Signs and symptoms of anorexia include:

if you're under 18, your weight and height being lower than the minimum expected for your age

if you're an adult, having an unusually low body mass index (BMI)

missing meals or eating very little

thinking about food a lot and being very careful about what you eat, such as avoiding eating any foods you see as fattening

believing you're fat when you're a healthy weight or underweight

your periods stopping (in women who have not reached menopause) or not starting (in younger women and girls)

physical problems, such as feeling lightheaded or dizzy, hair loss or dry skin

Some people with anorexia may also make themselves sick or do an extreme amount of exercise.

Some use medicines to reduce their hunger (appetite suppressants), help them poo (laxatives) or make them pee (diuretics) to try to stop themselves gaining weight from any food they do eat.

Health risks of anorexia

Long-term anorexia can lead to severe health problems associated with not getting the right nutrients (malnutrition). But these will usually begin to get better once your food intake starts improving.

problems with muscles and bones – including feeling tired and weak, osteoporosis, and problems with physical development in children and young adults

fertility problems

loss of sex drive

problems with the heart and blood vessels – including poor circulation, an irregular heartbeat, low blood pressure, heart valve disease, heart failure, and swollen ankles, feet and legs (oedema)

problems with the brain and nerves – including difficulties with concentration and memory or, less often, fits (seizures)

kidney or bowel problems

having a weakened immune system or anaemia

Anorexia can also put your life at risk. It's one of the leading causes of deaths related to mental health problems. Deaths from anorexia may be due to physical complications or suicide.

Causes of anorexia

We do not know exactly what causes anorexia and other eating disorders. You may be more likely to get an eating disorder if:

you or a member of your family has a history of eating disorders, depression, or alcohol or drug addiction

you have been criticised for your eating habits, body shape or weight

you're overly concerned with being slim, particularly if you also feel pressure from society or your job – for example, ballet dancers, jockeys, models or athletes

you have anxiety, low self-esteem, an obsessive personality or are a perfectionist

you have been emotionally, physically or sexually abused

nhs.uk. (2021). Overview - Anorexia. [online] Available at: https://www.nhs.uk/mental-health/conditions/anorexia/overview/#overview. ‌

[positivityforlesbians]

i just read that anon asking she wouldn’t ever call herself a lesbian because we are terf (???) well, i HAVE to say a thing: y’all have to learn that even if we are called tErF (that for me hasn’t even a meaning because it’s used over everything, even my cat can be a terf lol) or people create 86858383 flags, we CAN’T be attracted to trans women. ever, sorry. also, it’s hilarious that we are targeting worse than witch back in 1664 and also, y’all really give a fuck when your poor angel friends call us FETISHISED or say to us we have TO GO TO A PSYCHOLOGIST because we have surely a trauma!1!1! oh yes how could y’all addresses this, your trans ally card could be removed if you say a word over this awful behaviour that your friends in that gbt community keep saying and doing 😔

it’s also extremely vile and stupid to put under buss again lesbians and the label, if you are i hope you can face your internalised lesbophobia and learning that in that community no one cares about us and that everyone’s trying to change our sexual orientation. (also a label isn’t a choice, you can’t say you are bi just bc yes and if you aren’t you’re appropriating a space that isn’t yours)

(of course this message is for that anon 😭)

This message was still in my inbox from early September somehow. But I remember the person anon is referring to, usually it's easy to remember idiots with internalised lesbophobia so huge that they call themselves bi (even though it doesn't fit their reality), saying lesbians are "terf". I was so taken aback from that ask but in a way also not surprised. This is the consequence of everyone and their neighbours criticising lesbians constantly and in supposedly progressive circles. Anyway anon you're right, they can run for now trying to escape from these homophobes it will come back to them just the same. Actual lesbians can't stay too long denying what's happening, the cognitive dissonance and frustration becomes unbearable and at one point or another you say something you think isn't problematic at all (according to these 2.0 homophobes' standards) but then they start coming for your neck.

Always focus on protecting the lesbian community y'all, we need to prioritise ourselves and we won't say it too many times. It needs to be said over and over because it's super important. Other members of the community (gb but especially t) have asked that we care about their issues and fight for them without them ever caring and fighting for us, worst, they are being flagrantly lesbophobic. We aren't being targeted worse than witches (we'd have to be tortured, physically humiliated, burned for that) but yes there's a heavy, constant, noxious environment these homophobes have created. Luckily it has become increasingly clear that lesbians aren't staying silent about it, we're pissed off and we're not letting anyone disrespect us, our past, our community, culture, we aren't going to be erased by clowns who have the Audacity to think they're legitimate when it comes to talking about lesbians. They can fuck right off.

[mithliya]

ive been saying that i’ll be posting receipts on the hetfem server, which was also heavily requested by plenty of people on here. this post is going to be pretty long, so i’m putting it under a read more. keep in mind, this isn’t every single wrong thing that has been said on the server, some may disagree with some parts even being wrong to begin with, and this post may have more added to it afterwards in the reblogs. the individuals who have provided me with receipts were all feeling threatened due to knowing how vicious and prone to harassing others the women in this server often are. so ive been sent countless receipts with context, which i have tried to summarise as well. please remember that the point of this post isn’t to call out specific individuals, but rather it is to showcase that the concerns and ‘rumours’ going around about this server were reasonable and true, and to show how lesbophobic and racist this server is (which many have publicly stated before being dogpiled by members of the server). 

first is the zionism and racism in that specific regard. “theHettyishere” is black-diaspora, “Autumn” is probablyaterf. both are partaking in the erasure & justification of how israel is treating palestinians, erasing palestinians proven ties to their country, erasing the war crimes israel partook in, and also erasing the racism within israel which prioritises ashkenazim over mizrahim and black jews.

then they got more blatant and started saying that if you’re anti-zionism then you’re .. anti-semitic ?? keep in mind these people aren’t even jewish 

then they go onto defending christianity

and falsely claim hitler ‘deeply respected’ islam. interesting considering hitler called muslims ‘half-apes’ and all but oh well!  

second set of receipts is the defending of blackface and justification of it. in both these ‘debates’, they literally only present one side and then act like they had a great discussion at the end of it when they’re all just confirming their pre-existing beliefs and using one another to support that. anyways, girlsfrommars had previously come under fire for publicly defending the blackface tradition existing in her country, the netherlands. this is her doing it again after backpedaling on tumblr on this topic, and people in the server standing by her. battleking is bookrebelwordwarrior on tumblr. 

the conversation kinda goes on for a bit and girlfrommars does the same thing she did on tumblr not long before this convo, which was give a “oh ok i’ll reconsider!” which may not be her truth anyways.

next is people on the server saying straight women don’t have enough good representation and even talking about being upset over bi women and even lesbians being represented?? again, autumn is probablyaterf. laughing bird will appear in the screenshots a lot, although i’m not sure what her url is.

idk how to tell these het and bi women.... that lesbians have practically no good representation. especially not as much as het women. there’s a lot of parts of this conversation that are highly questionable. tldr its bad if lesbians or bi women headcannon gnc women as bi or lesbians. also its bad if gnc characters aren’t straight.

this next screen is coming from a het woman so keep that in mind. i don’t know how to put into words why i find this iffy so yall can see it and decide for urselves

she justifies it w this when a couple of members make it clear they find her message questionable:

on a different occasion, girlsfrommars, a white woman, decides to randomly ask other white women in the server what they think about reparations. a bunch of racist white women show themselves during this conversation. please keep in mind i was not the one censoring their usernames so i myself have no idea who these women are, but the person censored in white is emanon, who has a tumblr. i dont know what her tumblr is, but she will appear in multiple other receipts after this. keep in mind this entire channel ends up being deleted by probablyaterf to cover up the racism and prevent the collection of receipts, which you’ll see evidence of later on in this post.

then one of the white women dismisses the impact of racism, basically,

then woc start to chime in (white is the white woman, ‘emanon’)

then, after this conversation went on for a while, a mod decides to tone-police and shame the woc for taking issue with what the white woman was saying. this mod is also white.

“my race doesn’t matter, but i’m jewish” sounds convenient. especially since this person admitted to being white and stated thats why she should stay in her lane the previous day:

back to the dispute between LB and the woc:

remember LB’s tone and behaviour in  the above screenshots as you’ll see how different it is from how she acted when a white woman was being lesbophobic on the server. 

probablyaterf eventually comes in with “both sides were bad :)” basically

girlfrommars makes a non-apology apology about bringing up reparations the way she did

the next set of screenshots is just.. i dont even know what to say about it? yall can see it for yourselves because i think its self-explanatory. battle king = bookrebelwordwarrior, thehettyishere = black-diaspora, autumn = probablyaterf.

then the subtle lesbophobia comes in

this convo was then moved to a channel that was eventually deleted (receipt of that will be shown on this post).

probablyaterf then comes in and says lesbians are All saying the things mentioned above 

then radfemkitten talks about how upset she was and probablyaterf goes on about how this conversation should stop or something 

PAT then lowkey admits that part of the point of her server is to be able to talk shit about lesbians without being criticised for lesbophobia: 

radfemkitten more or less confirms this

PAT basically says “if you think women here are lesbophobic then leave but if you keep criticising what is said then i’ll mute and maybe even kick you!” ok

after this PAT muted that woman for saying that some of the women were being lesbophobic. 

someone showed exactly where lesbophobia was present 

 “straight women should have a space where they can shit talk lesbians without criticism” basically ^. this is the 3rd screenshot where members of the chat, specifically the creator PAT, states that the server exists partially so that non-lesbians can say shit without being criticised for being lesbophobic. 

this was then said by emanon (racist reparations lady): 

then probablyaterf coddles the women who were upset for being held accountable and kicks out the women who called out lesbophobia

probablyaterf deleted entire channels which involved members being lesbophobic and racist for the bullshit reason she provided here, basically admitting she would remove things to prevent the collection of receipts:

this is why she is so confident on her blog about how people can’t possibly have receipts on her server. because she makes sure to delete the evidence. issue is, she did it too late. she then started twisting the story and lying to save face. she removed the conversations regarding reparations, separatism, the accusations of racism & lesbophobia, them complaining about there not being enough good representation of straight women, etc were all removed. evidence:

then it gets even more blatantly sketchy, where PAT basically tells the members of the group to not repeat the drama or dish the details of it, as any honest and open person not hiding questionable shit would do, apparently. 

the details and specifics of this drama were all kept quiet by those involved as well, and those involved agreed to not talk about what has happened in detail.

the bit “one of the members was crying SO MUCH because you called her lesophobic that she almost LEFT HER JOB :(” is funny as y’all can see the situation for yourself up there, she said something and people questioned her on it. this wasn’t a case of a poor defenseless victim being cruelly attacked or whatever.

“a lot of them do tho clearly” keep in mind that there were like what .. 4 lesbians that took issue with the server? and initially there was even less than that.

radfemkitten then goes onto a lesbophobic rant.  

then they changed the story within the server and claimed that the accusations of racism were directed at woc... when it was directed at white women exclusively, as shown above. keep in mind the person claiming this and putting racism in quotations is a white woman herself so. hmm.

next incident is some white woman being very blatantly lesbophobic on the server. several people took issue with it, and she received multiple warnings but was not kicked. keep in mind that earlier, someone was kicked simply for questioning a member on the server and saying they were being lesbophobic. yet when someone is blatantly lesbophobic, they receive multiple warnings and then get away with it. “pinkie the feral one” goes by roxxy, i don’t know if she has a tumblr. notice how laughing bird is comparatively very civil and patient with this roxxy person. 

bi & het women determining that lesbians talking about thinking of pussy somehow implies ‘homosexuals are sex crazed deviants’, is what’s homophobic, btw.

next are when the hetfem server came under fire after TD spoke against it and drama ensued. i was initially 100% for the hetfem server and said those opposing it were being illogical. however, after a while of that drama, some lesbophobia was starting to come out from the hetfems which is when i said i think both sides are wrong. the hetfems took this very personally and proceeded to make lesbophobic comments about how im just bitter bc i dont have a gf or something (altho i was in a relationship back then so lol) and then they blatantly said they dont think het women have power over lesbians. the convo resulted in them full on arguing that lesbians have it easier than het women.

next coming is the hetfem server arguing that abrahamic religions actually *helped* women and how radfems should be talking about that. keep in mind some of these are the same people that mock people who say islam is a ‘feminist religion’. 

next is them arguing on the hetfem server that Nasime Aghdam, the youtube shooter, is male and referencing a meme as a source. they completely ignored the fact that Nasime’s childhood photos make it pretty obvious that that meme was inaccurate anyways. also probablyaterf argued that it’s somehow racist to note that nasime aghdam resembles many other people in the middle east (somewhere im from & where ive lived my entire life). its interesting considering how many things she argued weren’t racist or homophobic, yet noting that someone isn’t a Weird Unusual Looking Alien like she wants to claim is ..racist

the probablyaterf goes on to strawman that i claimed all iranians are clones of each other or smth simply bc i said nasime aghdam’s face is not unusual in countries like iran. also keep in mind the person censored in red is a white woman lol.

henryhetta = foxfur-nadine.

listen.. ive seen women wearing borderline clown makeup in my country. it doesnt make them male. anyways then PAT says ‘maybe im wrong but ill insist im not anyways’, basically.

next is the time black-diaspora posted a pic of my mom taken from my country’s gov facebook page, which provides people with her first & last name. this was brought up on the server. they said i was lying (i was not) and went on about how im crazy and need to get laid. also calling me a ‘nigel’ in one of those screens.

then they just keep justifying it and insulting me. instead of taking issue with what a member of their server did.

so basically “calling out lesbophobia is bad, but posting information that leads to someone’s mom’s full name and facebook is ok, and somehow posting something from a ‘public news article’”

then they said “homosexuality is legal in bahrain” to somehow justify any of this??? as if Bahrain doesn’t have a history of killing, imprisoning, torturing, and exiling Bahrainis that they see criticising the government (which i frequently do) or anything. not like around 200 people have lost their lives for critiquing Bahrain’s government or anything. moreover, plenty of things are ‘legal’ in Bahrain but still lead to punishment. sex outside of marriage is illegal and gay people can’t legally get married, for one. and people have been imprisoned in Bahrain for kissing members of the same sex. but whatever i guess. anyways then radfemkitten argues that i sent a picture doxxing my own fucking mother to black-diaspora. so i endangered my own mother and then begged these people to delete the information they posted, apparently? 

sadly, that is the end of the receipts i have on the topic of BD endangering my mom and the hetfem server justifying it and finding ways to blame me for BD’s actions. so i don’t have the bit that confirms how she explained herself to others and justified it, however she did justify and defend it publicly when i called her out on it. BD was not kicked or muted or anything of the sort for what she has done, and as you can see, everyone justified it and took it as an opportunity to insult me. this wouldn’t have been as much of an issue if i wasn’t from a dictatorship and if my blog wasn’t so political. what BD posted is STILL present on another blog and i could not get staff to delete it, so if the information falls into the wrong hands i don’t know what’ll happen to my mother, or even to me.

next is them justifying allying with the right despite their homophobia, racism, etc. keep in mind some of these women reblogged white supremacist propaganda in agreement with it so this isn’t particularly shocking. christmas begins in november = autumn = probablyaterf.

the issue with this, by the way, is associating with a group that is often misogynistic, homophobic, and racist solely to have a slightly larger platform of people who are more or less heavily for gender, gender roles, and more, sends the message that somehow these are ok things to side with as feminists. yall notice how many ‘radfems’ are literally just conservatives who are against some aspects of misogyny or trans people? these are the people you’re roping in a lot of the time. and this makes the voices of radfems easier to dismiss by the left as well. instead of establishing a space in the left, you end up placing yourself closer to the right and effectively putting the success of your movement to a halt.

these coming screenshots are the hetfems arguing het women have it The Hardest in radfem spaces 

separate event is just some lesbophobia, again.

“imagine a straight/bihet woman wondering what the purpose of a lesbian is” go outside. there’s plenty of that. one idiotic woman saying that about bisexuality doesn’t somehow override that.

more blatant lesbophobia in a separate event. note the reactions underneath the text (all in agreement)

how often have gay people talked about how the stupid “you have equal rights now uwu” bullshit is simply bullshit? this is exactly what men use to dismiss feminists, why do it to dismiss talk of homophobia?

a bunch of white & het/het-passing women joking about making a straight pride or kkk march

remember the white woman, emanon, who argues against reparations because “what about poor white people? :(” she comes in with more racism, and some intersexism too! this is her calling caster semenya, an intersex black woman, a man and using ‘he’ pronouns for her. girlfrommars, the white woman keen on defending blackface, comes in to express her agreement.

then they argue that semenya was raised as a male.. because she refused to wear feminine clothing including in school & because some people thought she was, and thus treated her as such until they realised shes not, a man??

this is more recent than a lot of the previous receipts. i reblogged one post by radfemkitten a while back, and she was so flattered she felt the need to complain about it on the hetfem server, to which someone replied by likening me to a male hippo from madagascar. 

[misunderstoodnotevil]

Series 1, episode 2

Society classes. The upstairs and the downstairs. The aristocrats, the upper (as Isobel kindly provides) middle-class, the servants. Those who can talk and those who can't. There's a right there, and some have it and others don't. The writing narrative; the protagonists and the antagonists. The good and the bad. Everything is muddled. I could write long essays about each and every character and their interactions with the other characters and focus on the writer's own bias and prejudice (should I dare call it hypocrisy considering it’s clearly shown by the characters themselves?) that reflects on the character like on a newly ajax sprayed mirror. Alas, in this page, we'll stick to Thomas.

Thomas' age is unspecified -mostly due to Rob's age- but, I wonder if he can be older than in his late teens. So, until I'm proven wrong in regards to this, I will consider him a teenager (as weird as it seems). Miss O'Brien seems to be the only ally he has in the Abbey. And the both of them are -for reasons unknown as of yet- the antagonists.

When Thomas asks Mr. Carson if the latter has seen the new "family", his reply implies he doesn't think much of them. "I have that pleasure to look forward to this evening." "Pleasure" is uttered with an air of sarcasm. He won't be pleased to meet them. Cora doesn't want them at the beginning. The Dowager doesn't even try to be polite towards Isobel during their first meeting. Mary doesn't want them. But the issue, the one criticised is Miss O'Brien. Thomas follows his "betters" behaviour if you think about it when he serves Matthew "I will hold it steady and you can help yourself, sir." Everyone has declared Matthew a savage. Even if he isn't.

*

"Poor old Molesley. I pity the man who's taken that job."

How does Bates know Thomas applied for the job? Because, as Thomas himself says afterwards, Carson told him.

"I thought it might help me to get away from you, Mr Bates. " Why does Thomas want to get away from Mr. Bates. As I wrote for the first episode, all we know is that Bates took the job he wanted and apparently for Thomas, that's an insult as he think Bates can't be as good in the job as he is (and he may be right about it). Again, the issue is Thomas doesn't say anything particularly awful (as opposed to other times) but they frame him here as the "antagonist".  

* "She's a match for the old lady. She wasn't going to give in." Thomas says about Isobel (and Violet) to another maid, and he's been heard by Carson who doesn't hesitate to threaten him with his job. "What old lady are you referring to, Thomas? You cannot mean Her Ladyship the Dowager Countess. Not if you wish to remain in this house." It's not as if Violet is a young woman, is she?

When Carson talks with Hughes about Matthew being the heir which is the reason Mary doesn't like him, Carson is not only to justify her dislike of the man but criticise the law. And I don't question the fact he's right about the law not permitting women to inherit their fathers fortune, here is how he treats the woman with the most privilege in the Abbey thinking she should have even more privilege as opposed to threatening the one lower than him with his job.

Fast forward towards the end of the episode when Mr. Hughes calls Violet "an old bat". "I want to see the old bat's face when they announce it. I must try not to look too cheerful. Or shouldn't I talk like that in your presence?" and Carson doesn't mind one bit because a. he has his own problems of humiliation and b. he sees Ms. Hughes as an equal. However, old bat is far worse than the old lady Thomas said. Thomas expressed an opinion based on the interaction he witnessed between Isobel and Violet and he was right. Ms. Hughes in contrast is amused by Violet losing the battle. Even in this case Thomas is the antagonist.

*

"I don't think that's fair. Not here in the servants' hall."

Cora catches O'Brien speaking against Matthew at the servants' hall and calls out her behaviour. She calmly threatens her in a way. "Your sailing perilously close to the wind, O'Brien. If we're to be friends, you will not speak in that way again" They are not friends. O'Brien is at least right about that. If they were friends she would have been able to speak as she wanted to, like Violet or Mary. They are not the same. O'Brien is there to listen to Cora complains but she should never take it to heart because the latter can easily "remove her friendship". People are treated differently for saying the same things. Because people are not equal. It's not what they say, it's what they are.

It drives me up the wall.

And when Thomas tries to support him but claiming they have a right to speak their mind down there, Ms. Hughes is there to stop him. "Not when I'm in charge! Don't push your luck, Thomas." Don't push your luck Thomas, you have no right to speak or else...!

And O'Brien is right when she says to Anna that they -even the servants among themselves- are not friends she's right, and Anna proves it when she complains to Ms. Hughes Thomas is bullying William. As if Carson and Hughes haven't bullied and threatened him with their power over him his job.

*

"I'm sick of being a footman."

Thomas is fixing a clock in the yard when Ms. O'Brien finds him. She wonders how Carson permit him to do it, and Thomas has the skill as his father was a clockmaker. It's a bit surprising that that's an information Ms. O'Brien doesn't know because out of everyone else seem to be the closer (he does ask her to dance with him the grizzly bear before he goes with Daisy, as if he's certain she knows how to dance too), but I guess it was a way for the audience to know. Despite the fact she's part of the servants class, O'Brien thinks Matthew is no superior of her m, but instead of wanting to be a step up like he is, she wants to pull him down with her. "I'd rather be a footman than wait on someone who ought to be a footman himself," she says when Thomas admits he's tired of the job. Thomas' ambitions never work. But he seems to want to better himself. Both of them hate their work, but both of them know they need to be well liked by the "upstairs" if they want to keep working.

[skamamoroma]

Meg, always kinda wanted to ask....what’s your opinion on the actress who plays Sana in SkamIt not being Muslim?

This is the only post I’ll make on the issue ❤️

Skam is all about providing hope regardless of the issue or story. It is about giving the viewer an experience, giving them a close insight into a person person so that they can understand their story and provide hope.

Representation matters. A lot. It gives people a sense of belonging, of being seen and valued and appreciated and, above all, gives them a role model. It also teaches people who are not from that “minority” (for want of a better word) a new viewpoint and it can educate. It’s wonderful.

I am not a Muslim. I am not a POC. I have no religion at all. I will never understand what it is to be either. I have friends who are one or both so I have some knowledge of some issues my friends face from a closer perspective but I am absolutely never going to know what it is to experience life as a religious (and obviously religious) person or a person of colour.

My opinion matters here as much as anyone’s who is a non-Muslim non POC, aka only so far. The same way as I identify with the LGBT+ storylines, if someone none LGBT+ were to weigh in and say something about stuff they have no personal experience or knowledge of them that’s not at all helpful but if they have general comments about the storyline or the character or the behaviours then awesome! That’s a viewer 😊 that’s what you’re meant to do. But I am not going to devalue or overpower the opinion of someone who is a Muslim POC because their voice on these things deserves to be heard.

Having a Muslim person play a Muslim role is undoubtedly going to be a wonderful thing. Iman brought so much to her role. She gave understanding and depth and I believe even offered Julie tips and info. That’s special. That’s a community being represented by someone who gets it. She received a LOT of backlash for playing Sana from her own community and the guts that took. I imagine she realised the good a character like Sana could and was doing. Do you need to be a Muslim to play a Muslim role? The same way you don’t need to be gay to play the role of a gay teenager or you don’t have to have a mental illness to play someone with bipolar etc etc etc. There’s no requirement there but sometimes things more nuanced than that. Sometimes the need to further a cause is perhaps a bigger one and I absolutely see the value in a real, young Muslim girl playing that role and I can see how the impact can be felt as I’ve been in this fandom a long time.

Italy as a country needs Skam. Many countries need it but Italy’s political landscape is tricky and I have listened to Italian friends and lovely Italian folks on here who have expressed how needed an Italian s3 (Marti) and s4 (Bea) is. I have had Italian Muslims message me to tell me they’re thrilled Sana’s season is even a thing in their country. They have told me that they see that things are different there than in other countries who have Skam. They have commented that they themselves are a white Muslim and feel like Sana looks like they do in their country as they are hijab wearers too. This too can not be discounted. Political landscapes DO impact media and fiction because perhaps sometimes there is even more nuance at play. Perhaps sometimes there is stuff that people in other countries do not have to think about and perhaps to have a tv season shown and understood and accepted some things have to be a little different. These are things I have been told by Italian Muslims.

I am not a fan of how the issue has been handled. Besse is a tricky dude. He’s not subtle and he’s not someone who easily handles criticism even if it is constructive. He does handle it but he also makes snap reactions and it ain’t helpful. But he also cares a great deal. Julie Andem has said he’s the main producer to contact her and discuss, he has taken months to get to know and to understand Muslim youth in Italy, he cares about the show and characters on an immeasurable level, even going so far as to single handedly try to do the social media for s3 himself because they were having so many issues with Timvision. This is a man who gives a shit. He isn’t always right and sometimes goes about stuff in an less than ideal way but he gives a shit and I have respect for anyone who does.

This whole “no other Muslims came to casting”. I don’t know how true or untrue that is. I am sure there are many young talented Muslim or POC actresses in Italy but how am I to comment if that statement is true or not. I wasn’t there. Perhaps a little more insistence could have been had to find someone else?

Beatrice got the role. She’s a young actress, young lady and this is a huge acting gig. She is also perhaps lacking in education a little. Should she be ridiculed, put on the spot, forced to answer complex questions at the drop of a hat and expected to be a walking Wikipedia of social matters? Should she be ganged up on or singled out and made to feel less worthy? Should she be treated poorly and with contempt? Absolutely fucking not. She’s a human. She’s a young female in a complex industry that doesn’t tend to treat women all that well. She has emotions and feelings and a heart and is a person. Education and kindness and explanations are the way to handle stuff like this not sarcasm and vitriol and chastising. I get that anger is a thing people who are marginalised feel because I have felt it myself, I understand that those in the Muslim community understand a level of marginalisation that nobody who is outside if that community can possibly understand and I would never try to speak for the anger they should and shouldn’t be allowed to feel but I’m talking about a fellow human and a show that advocates hope and kindness and comfort and acceptance. Treating her like shit isn’t ok, it isn’t what Skam is about and it isn’t nice on a very basic human level.

The season is going ahead. Besse has done a lot of research and committed himself to making this season happen. He has spoken about how much he loves and respects the season’s issues and has made it clear how much he fought for it to be a thing in the first place. This isn’t a show runner who doesn’t care but it doesn’t mean he can’t be criticised still.

My view is that this would be a wonderful chance for a young Muslim POC to play a role that represents her. To embody a character that other young POC Muslims (or even not POC because white Muslims do exist) can look up to, to be a role model, to represent her community. That can only ever be a truly special thing and Iman did a magical job as have other actresses playing Sana. I wish that the casting directors and show runner had insisted on this.

But I do not want to discount the immense good that a Sana season could do in modern day Italy. I don’t want to suggest that I understand the decisions behind the scenes. I don’t want to speak for white Muslims living in Italy. I don’t want to speak against Muslim Italians who have commented how much Sana’s season will mean to them in their political landscape.

I love Skam Italia. I think it’s a wonderful show. I cherish so much of it. No show is perfect. No remake of Skam is perfect. No actor or actress is an immediate social justice warrior with all of the complex sensitive knowledge at their finger tips to spout forth in a speech to end social issues. I care about people giving a shit and I care about kindness and this cast do as do many of the other Skam casts. This show is precious and useful and unique and it also is made and shown in countries with their own political, social, historic landscapes that people from outside those countries do not understand and that should always be remembered too.

This is not an easy topic and I think anyone who is POC and or Muslim has a right to express opinion and those opinions should be listened to but the way with all of this is with kindness not hatred. I don’t tolerate poor treatment of people. We live in a modern time where being wrong is apparently nowadays a cause of bloody abuse and that’s insanity. Debate is important as is talking to understand. Sometimes there is a place for anger and righteousness and yes I’d absolutely agree that it can be used in a valuable way and especially minorities have no requirement to educate or spend their time being kind to people who are racist or homophobic or prejudice in any way... but where there is misunderstanding or perhaps debate to be had and where stuff concerns well meaning people who maybe need to understand another viewpoint etc etc etc, I’d advocate for kindness and education over anything.

So these are my feelings on the issue. I will watch Sana’s season and I’ll be absolutely willing to be constructively critical, as always. I will also listen to those who are Muslim and Italian about how they feel about the season. I am also watching significantly for other characters too. I love a lot of the general s4 storyline and loved Sana a great deal. By me watching the season, it does not mean I am not critical of some of the decisions made. I choose, in the circumstances we are in, to give it a chance and to appreciate the good it can still do.

I don’t want to have a mass debate on this topic. There are people better places to have that debate and I’m not one of them. Please be kind and respectful and listen, that would be my advice ❤️

[fymagnificentwomcn]

Ayşe Haseki and Gevherhan's friendship is so underrated too and obviously both of them deserved better ! I would've loved to see more of their friendship tbh the whole Farya plot ruined the entire show

Agree 100% Anon. We should have it explored.

I was really excited for Farya/Atike friendship because female friendship is always treasured on these shows, but what we got was a disaster. We received two entitled gal pals thinking they are so better than other “typical” women, merely endorsing and encouraging each other’s awful behaviour… and they talked about guys 95% of the time anyway. There was one decent scene of Farya when she told Atike that getting Silahtar was precisely what she wanted and that she was happy about what Murad had done… but it was clear that Farya wouldn’t have called Atike out on her bullshit if she hadn’t been frustrated by Murad being with another woman. Plus Atike’s contempt for Ayse.. where did it come from: “She can wield a sword, finally my brother met someone who deserved him” WTF ??? Well, Farya and Murad did deserve each other, but I don’t think Atike meant it in the way I do ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°).

Murad did reward Atike for sucking up to him and Farya, while Gevherhan had her own mind and was able to criticise them… but I honestly wouldn’t call a reward forcing a man to marry me for punishment. I’d expect of an older brother to show me the way and instruct me instead of making me a pawn to show how scary, unyielding and able to decide everyone’s fate I am.

If this whole situation does not again show that Murad does not not how to rule other than how to instill fear in everyone and command an army, I don’t know what else it is. Same about his understanding of the concept of “justice”, or rather lack thereof.

Farya ate so much screentime on her mostly fictional and absurd Hungarian history plot (and even her name isn’t Hungarian lmao), awful love story, awful friendship, awful rivalry and awful spy story and in the end introduced nothing of sense and meaning to the show. And in MYKS2 screentime was very valuable, as it turned out, and writers should have been aware because they already speedied up a lot of stuff in S1 due to poor ratings.

- Joanna

[serenagaywaterford]

But I think Nick will die for June at the end (Max, here is your chance to instill some life into the character, right before he dies. Ha) Oh, and yeah... people giving him a pass are just ridiculous. Granted he had little power, but he was driving when the commanders came up with the ceremony idea, and who knows what else he’s privy to in those 500 millions car rides. He has an important job, easy access to anywhere including the borders, knows a shit ton about the inner workings of Gilead.

Never did he try to escape, and share that intel with the rest of the world. It would’ve been so easy for him to do. Fine, let’s say he’s with the resistanc, trying to fight from within, but honestly he’s not done much on that front either. The previous handmaid killed herself, and he couldn’t do much for the current one. Never mind the others. Basically nothing in the past 5 years or so… why is he so great?

This is what annoys me about all the Serena hate. Sure, she’s awful… but she gets more hate than everyone else, including Fred sometimes. What about aunt Lydia? Carrying out daily punishments to all handmaids, literally has mutilated every sinlgle one of them.. but but she really really loves them!!

Or commander Joseph? He was the architect of the financial system, and also the colonies (if I remember correctly). Oh I don’t know, sounds like a big deal… but but he’s so quirky, and throws out a few funny one liners. Anyway, in conclusion, Serena good, everyone else sucks (j/k, sort of). Rant over.

—

This is such a huge, complex issue. This is gonna get loooooooooooonnnnnnngggggggggg.

Personally, I’m tired of the “he had little power” argument for Nick. It’s akin to “He’s just following orders” imo. The Nuremberg defense. He wasn’t that powerless, lbr. He’s a man. With a brain. The ability to say, “Um, no thanks.” Which puts him in incredible power over every single woman, including Wives. Maybe at the beginning when he was a mere driver he had less power (but he still had the ability to say no). But he still had a damn voice and opinion, and what did he do with it? Supported the Handmaid system. Blatantly. Barely any hesitation. Nick has been complicit in Gilead from the very beginning when he was literally hand-picked by Pryce because he was a disillusioned, entitled, little man with anger issues. (Hmm, sounds familiar to a lot of the ultra-right MRAs now.) He could have said no. I’m sure he could have even gotten out of that cesspool as soon as he saw where it was heading. Pryce is one of the OGs of Gilead. Nick stayed quiet and continued to support him, for years and years and years. Then he directly supported Waterford, another Gilead OG, for years. He did literally NOTHING to help any women at any point, until June came along and only then did he help her, but not women in general. Just June. He is so incredibly selfish and self-serving. But hey, woobie cinnamon roll. Blah.

Now, is it understandable? Sure. Nobody wants to be poor, sent to a labour camp, or die. But maybe Nick could have just been an Economan? He could have been a soldier. He could have been a rebel! Who knows. I never once saw him threatened with anything at all, except in 2x10/2x11. Sort of. I do get why Nick would stay quiet, keep his head down, and as man --have no concept of what he was doing. But I don’t think that absolves him of his involvement. Which is essentially my issue with him.

Even in mid-S2 he still had NO concept of what women really experience in Gilead. His whiny bullshit to June about not wanting to fuck Eden was just... the moment I realised he has literally learnt and absorbed NOTHING. He was literally whinging to JUNE WHO IS RAPED EVERY MONTH about how he doesn’t want to have sex with Eden.

Like, yeah, I wouldn’t want to rape a child either. (And yes, I do consider it rape regardless of whether Eden says she wants to do it or not. She has no concept of even the ability to consent. She thinks she HAS to or die, and Serena has confirmed that repeatedly.) And it’s a fucking horrible choice: rape a child or be hanged for being gay. Holy shit that’s awful. So, in a way, it’s mutual rape??? Well, that’s sort of awful since Eden isn’t doing anything at all. But Nick is being abused by the very system he helped organise. Funny that. (Not funny.)

I am just so fucking glad June called him on it. But it’s that sort of attitude and behaviour that makes it really hard for me to consider Nick an honest to goodness Good Guy, rather than just a Nice Guy TM. It’s not like it was just a flashback, it was current Gilead.

And because of that lack of understanding on his part, I think that’s why he’s done basically nothing. Honestly? What has he done for the resistance?

...

Um.

1. Gave letters to Luke.

...

That’s it. 

(Don’t get me started on that whole “these letters are so revolutionary!!!” subplot cos it was so nonsensical when there are literal human beings saying the same things RIGHT THERE lol.)

Not that it’s not a big deal. It was very important. But that’s literally all he has done for the resistance as an entity. Everything else has just been for June, specifically, which is, essentially for his own sense of well-being. He has SO MUCH DIRT on Waterford, at least. And like you said, he has so much background on Gilead as a whole. He knows every in and out of it and has nothing with it. At least that we’ve seen.

Other things he’s done? Ignoring June’s “misbehaviour”. Fucking June. Acting as a decoy to protect June at the house in the woods. Helping Serena forge security documents and various things (which is not for the resistance either but it was a Good Thing, but if we’re gonna give credit to him for that ya gotta give it to Serena (and June) too). Everything he’s done in terms of smuggling and Jezebels--which is not at all for the resistance and only benefits the men.

He’s just not that great.

ANYWAY. ENough about Nick. He’s not worth it lol.

This is what annoys me about all the Serena hate. Sure, she’s awful… but she gets more hate than everyone else, including Fred

THIS. IS. IT.

THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT INFURIATING THING IN FANDOM.

I AGREE 100000000%.

Serena by far gets the most hate, for ANY POSSIBLE THING. I think it’s come to the point where Serena could just walk a certain way and viewers would criticise her for which foot she put first. This woman BY FARRRRR gets the blame for everything. More than Fred. 

And we all know why.

Don’t even get me started on the fan-boner for Commander Lawrence. Oh my god, he’s so quirky and weird! He didn’t rape Emily! WHAT A GREAT GUY!!!! I HOPE HE’S IN S3!! I WANT TO KNOW ALL ABOUT HIM!!! HE’S SO AWESOME!

No.

He’s a fucking creep.

His wife is literally so traumatised by his existence she’s gone somewhat insane, so he LOCKS HER IN HER ROOM. “For her own good”, ofc.

He created the financial system AND the Colonies.

We literally have no idea if he’s beaten women, withheld anything, or raped them during Ceremonies. (I would assume he has. A man who invents the fucking Colonies doesn’t seem like the sort of dude to draw the line at state-sanctioned rape or corporeal punishment. So, let’s assume that at least he’s participated in Ceremonies in the past.)

But hey, he played some Annie Lennox and has cool comic books! And look, what an amazing man he is for helping Emily escape! He’s got such a pure heart!

Yes, the man who invented radioactive concentration deathcamps for gay/feminist/old/barren/adulterous women. He’s such a paragon of peace and feminism. We all should love him.

I...

CAN’T...

EVEN.

Meanwhile, yes, Serena has done fucking horrible things. (She did NOT invent the Handmaid system however.) But wait... HORRIBLE IRREDEEMABLE CUNT!!!!!!!!!! NEVER FORGIVE ANYTHING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! SHE HATES WOMEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! DIE BITCH DIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And there is literally no interest in discussing her rationally, or even attempting to understand why she does what she does. BORING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! GO DIE!!!

(The gendered slurs towards Serena often are also very, very telling.)

I have no problem with people hating Serena, or criticizing her. Good. She deserves it. 

I do have a problem holding her to some different standard than literally ANY OTHER CHARACTER. While actively ignoring the horrible shit the men do on a regular basis. The two most hated characters? Serena and Lydia. But you’re right, I often see the “Aunt Lydia is horrible and I hate her... but she loves the girls in her own messed up way and is doing her best for them!!!” 

Yeah? Well, Serena loves children. Like, really fucking loves kids. In her own messed up way and is doing her best for them. 

I don’t think it’s any coincidence that the two most hated characters and the ones that receive the most vitriol are female villains whereas male villains are just sort of skimmed over. Sure, people say, “I hate Fred” it’s not nearly as gendered or as intense. And in a way I get it, cos women hating other women to such a degree is ... just... unbearable. But it was literally the men who both created and maintain the society. ALL MEN. No excuses, no exceptions. ALL men, including precious Nick. Whether or not he’s happy or likes the system, he’s still done fuck all to change it and he still benefits from it.

Where’s the outrage at Warren for sexually abusing Janine? Oh, right. He got punished for that so it’s all fine. (Serena was literally whipped with a belt for doing a Good Thing, and lost a finger for another Good Thing, but hey, “She deserved it. It’s not enough! She needs to DIE a horrible death ASAP.”) Where the consistent outrage at Fred for basically everything he ever says and does? Where’s the same outrage for participating in raping pregnant June? (I do get there is a difference and even June knows it but still. The outrage was not even close to the same level. They literally blame Serena for Fred’s behaviour like he’s some poor, voiceless rube that is controlled entirely by her.) And we’ve already discussed the lack of outrage at Joe, or Nick.

I dunno.

It makes me so sad and angry. Serena could just sigh the wrong way and fans will insist she dies. Fred is an architect of the system (WAY more than Serena), continues to support the system wholeheartedly, cheats on his wife by grooming and sexually assaulting the Handmaids (yes, plural), then blames his wife for him cheating, beats the shit out of his wife, chops off her finger, rapes a pregnant woman (not to mention all the other rapes, where it is completely in his power to say no thanks not tonight at any time), wallops June across the face, gleefully supports murdering children, and implies that he wants to continue raping June for as long as possible to get a son (so, FOREVER), and hey, that’s just Fred being Fred. Cos, look, he lets June play Scrabble and see her baby. Fred has not done a single Truly Good Thing.

Not to say Serena hasn’t done almost equally awful things to some of those things. She has. But the sheer hatred towards her and the vocal outrage far surpasses Fred. Even when she legitimately does a Truly Good Thing (of which she has done exactly 3 lol), people say, “Well, so what? Hang the bitch!!!!!!!”

I know I sound like some delusional Serena Joy stan but really, the sexism and misogyny even in a fandom like THT is staggering. 

Because sadly, I see it towards June as well. I have literally read terrible takes about how June isn’t that great, but Nick is the true gem. June isn’t that great cos she’s the Other Woman and wasn’t compassionate to Luke’s wife accosting her, but Luke is fine even though he was the actual adulterer and he was totally right to be screaming at his (ex-)wife like that on the phone. June gets a shit load of criticism for a lot of things while certain other male characters, again, get a pass for sometimes worse decisions and behaviour.

So, yes, I agree SO FUCKING HARD with your rant and always feel free to rant!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :DDDDDDDDDD

[snughuz]

Piers Morgan article copied. No pictures

PIERS MORGAN: Meghan and Harry's nauseating two-hour Oprah whine-athon was a disgraceful diatribe of cynical race-baiting propaganda designed to damage the Queen as her husband lies in hospital - and destroy the Monarchy

By PIERS MORGAN FOR MAILONLINE

PUBLISHED: 07:33 EST, 8 March 2021 | UPDATED: 07:47 EST, 8 March 2021

Sickening.

Shameful.

Self-pitying.

Salacious.

Scandalous.

Sanctimonious.

Spectacularly self-serving.

Those were just my initial thoughts after ten minutes of the Oprah whine-athon with Meghan and Harry, and while restricting myself to only using words beginning with the letter 's'.

By the time I'd finished the whole two-hour orgy of pious, self-indulgent, score-settling twaddle, the steam was erupting out of my ears like an exploding geyser, and my lexicon of rageful epithets extended to the full range of the alphabet.

Never have I watched a more repulsively disingenuous interview.

Nor one more horrendously hypocritical or contradictory.

Here we had the Duke and Duchess of Privacy flinging out the filthy family laundry for the delectation of tens of millions of people all over the world, whilst simultaneously bleating about press intrusion.

They moaned about the terrible pain of their royal titles but were also outraged their son Archie wasn't allowed to be a Prince.

They told of their constant trauma from nasty newspaper stories, but repeatedly insisted they never read any of them.

They claimed they were forced to sign gazillion-dollar deals with Netflix and Spotify because Prince Charles cut off their allowance, despite Harry inheriting millions from his late mother Princess Diana and having his entire life bankrolled by the Royal Family.

And so, it went nauseatingly on.

In the middle of a pandemic that has already taken over 2.5 million lives, a staggeringly rich and entitled couple living in a $14 million sun-kissed California mansion wanted us all to know that THEY are the real victims around here.

Meghan even compared her former life living in a palace to the crippling freedom-robbing existence of coronavirus lockdowns, which must have sounded so empathetic to large families living at the top of tower blocks with three kids they're trying to home-school and no job to pay for food.

'I couldn't even meet my friends for lunch!' wailed the Duchess of Delusion, who flew to New York for a $500,000 baby shower with all her new-found celebrity pals, then flew back to London like any good eco-warrior on George Clooney's carbon footprint guzzling private jet.

But amid all the relatively trivial gossipy stuff emerged some incredibly damaging bombshells deliberately detonated to do maximum damage to the British Royal Family and the Monarchy.

First, Meghan claimed to have been left suicidal by the pressure of being a Princess and had her requests for help rejected by the cold, heartless Palace.

We weren't told who did the rejecting, or why she couldn't seek her own therapy or treatment if that's what she felt she needed. After all, her husband has spent years talking about mental health and has close connections with all the major mental health charities.

Instead, we're left to believe the Palace spurned a pregnant suicidal woman in her hour of desperate need.

But that wasn't even the most explosive revelation.

No, that came when Meghan told Oprah that a member of the Royal Family had queried what colour her baby would be during a conversation with Harry.

In fact, she said there were several conversations, whereas he said there was only one.

But neither of them would name the offending Royal.

Harry said he would never reveal the name.

So, we're now left to view all the Royals as racists.

Nor were we given any details of exactly what was said, or in what context it was said.

Would an older senior Royal innocently asking Harry what skin colour his baby might have, given that Meghan's mother is black and her father white, constitute racism?

It would if there was any derogatory tone to the question, or any suggestion that it would be a problem how dark the child's skin was. But we don't know the answers to those vital questions, because having let off the racism bomb, the Sussexes won't say any more.

I find that cowardly.

And the racism charge got worse.

Meghan followed up by asserting, without providing any evidence, that the Royal Family decided to change the rules specifically to prevent her son Archie from being a Prince, because of his skin colour.

Again, no name was given for the appalling racist at the Palace responsible for such a disgusting discriminatory decision.

But, as Meghan and Harry both know, the only person who has final say over titles is the Queen.

So, in making this astonishing unproven claim, they're effectively branding Her Majesty, Harry's grandmother, a racist.

It's hard to think of a more disgraceful slur to make against a woman who has devoted her whole life to the service of her country and the Commonwealth.

The Queen is not a racist and has never been a racist.

To even suggest that she might be is disgusting.

But to do so at a time when her 99-year-old husband Prince Philip has spent the past few weeks lying seriously ill in hospital is worse than that, it's contemptible.

Nothing that Meghan Markle said in this interview surprised me.

From the moment Oprah announced her scoop, I predicted to anyone who asked me that Meghan would aggressively play the mental health and race cards to deflect from any criticism of herself and her own behaviour or accountability.

I also cynically suspect it's the reason why she chose to do such a sensational interview when she's five months pregnant. Why would any woman do that after suffering a miscarriage last year, knowing the obvious controversy, media attention, and stress it would provoke? The answer, I fear, is that she thought the pregnancy would afford her another layer of protection against the inevitable furore and criticism that would result from her trashing the Royal Family.

Having had personal experience, on a very small scale, of Meghan Markle's ruthlessness when dispensing of anyone in her life that's ceased to be of use to her, it was no great shock to see her lighting a gigantic bonfire that will surely cause irreparable damage to her husband's family.

After all, she's torched all her own family, along with her ex-husband and most of her old friends.

This was the acting performance of her life, with every word, every facial expression carefully planned and choreographed.

In fact, it it's not late, someone should nominate it for the Oscars.

I mean, this is a woman who was photographed on the railings of Buckingham Palace as a starry-eyed teenager but now wants us to believe she knew nothing about the Royals and never once Googled her handsome Prince when they met.

Given these are both obvious lies, why should we believe anything that comes out of her mouth?

'Nobody told me how to curtsy or sing the British national anthem,' wailed a 39-year-old woman, married to someone who can probably help with both.

But make no mistake, this interview will be a triumph for Meghan in America. Her narrative of a poor, vulnerable, unsuspecting bi-racial woman thrown to the wolves by a white, racist Royal Family and racist British press is already being heralded as 'courageous' and 'brave' and 'iconic' across the United States.

She's got exactly what she wants: her homeland feeling sorry for her.

And woe betide anyone who criticises Meghan, for you will be instantly lambasted as a 'racist bully' towards a woman who stands accused of subjecting her own young female Palace staff to horrendous bullying.

But what about Prince Harry, and his own homeland of Great Britain?

How on earth could he allow his wife to take down his family like this on TV, and attack and belittle the very institution held so dear by his grandmother?

He even let her chuck his brother William's wife Kate - a woman who has never once said a bad word about Meghan in public - under the bus by saying she made her cry in a row over kids' wedding dresses.

That 'space', which is how Harry framed his current fractured relationship with William, will now be the size of 1000 Grand Canyons.

And then Harry gleefully joined in the Sopranos-style whacking too, revealing incredibly intimate secrets about his father Prince Charles of the type that he would scream in fury over if they'd been revealed by the tabloid press.

He claimed Charles stopped taking his calls last January after he and Meghan quit their country and the Royal Family and cut off his massive financial allowance too. And Harry's still furious with his Dad, apparently, for letting him down.

Yet, what has Charles done wrong exactly, other than try to deal with his headstrong younger son's constant self-pitying hunger for drama?

He bankrolled Harry and Meghan for years, and even stepped in to walk her down the aisle when her father pulled out after suffering a heart attack and was disowned by his daughter (where were Oprah 'nothing's off limits' Winfrey questions about that?) - yet they now pay him back with this open back-stabbing treachery.

Harry disloyally says Charles and William are 'trapped' in the institution of the Monarchy because they are the heirs to the throne.

'They don't get to leave, and I have huge compassion for that,' he claimed.

Oh please.

He and Meghan bang on endlessly about their compassion yet show the complete opposite to their own families.

If Charles or William wanted to leave, they could do exactly what Harry's done, and what Edward VIII did when he abdicated the throne.

Any royal can 'leave'.

But only Edward and Harry actually did it, both coincidentally after falling in love with American women.

The only difference is that Edward and Wallis Simpson never spoke badly in public about the Royal Family or trashed the Monarchy.

Within hours of the Oprah interview airing, the hashtag #AbolishTheMonarchy was trending on Twitter.

That's the effect that Meghan and Harry's accusations have had with their shockingly poisonous allegations.

Ms Markle won't care about the damage she's done to an institution she clearly reviles.

But Harry should.

The fact he's so willingly taken part in such a despicable public attack on the Royal Family – HIS family - and the Monarchy is utterly shameful.

And to have caused so much extra hurt to his 94-year-old grandmother the Queen at a time when her husband lies seriously ill in hospital, is just appalling.

When it comes to mental health and having a heart, it appears Meghan and Harry only care about themselves.

Share or comment on this article: PIERS MORGAN: Meghan and Harry's nauseating two-hour Oprah whine-athon was a disgraceful diatribe.

[socialprotection]

THE CASE FOR UNIVERSAL SOCIAL PROTECTION IS MORE SELF-EVIDENT THAN EVER

Shahra Razavi, 17 May 2020

The idea that societies can be secure by relying on individualised market-based provision for those who can afford it, and porous ‘’safety nets’’ for the poor, has proven to be illusionary.  If the COVID-19 pandemic has sent the world one message, it is that we are only as safe as the most vulnerable among us. If people are unable to access quality health care and quarantine themselves, they face serious health risks and may transmit the virus to others, and if one country cannot contain the virus, others are bound to be (re-)infected. And yet, with the exception of those countries with robust and comprehensive social protection systems, many are struggling to safeguard the lives and livelihoods of all those affected.

After the last global catastrophe – the 2008 financial crisis – the international community unanimously reaffirmed the human right to social security by adopting the ILO Social Protection Floors Recommendation, 2012 (No. 202). In doing so, countries pledged to guarantee at least a basic level of social security, including access to health care and income security over the life cycle for all, as part of their national social protection systems, and to progressively ensure higher levels of social protection. More than a decade later, as the current crisis makes clear, not nearly enough progress has been made.

However, in the midst of the COVID-19 crisis there are glimmers of hope. Both the pandemic and the ensuing economic meltdown have spurred a flurry of government action on social protection. Between 1 February and 12 May 2020, 168 countries and territories announced at least 915 social protection measures in response to the COVID-19 crisis, with a notable number of countries extending coverage of existing programmes, including to workers in the informal economy, and removing various obligations and behavioural conditions to facilitate access. It is still too early to know whether these will be temporary stop-gap measures, or if they will be sustained and integrated into national social protection systems. A lot will depend on the broader macroeconomic context: concerns that austerity may be around corner if not already here cast a dark shadow. However, what is clear is that particularly in a complex, fast moving and unpredictable crisis like COVID-19, universal or categorical approaches are preferable to narrowly targeted ones which leave governments struggling to reach large swathes of the population. The case for universal social protection is further strengthened by the fact that it is a powerful economic and social stabiliser, softening the impact of crises and contributing to a swifter recovery.

In recent weeks, even the World Bank has spoken of the merits of “universal entitlements to health care and income support” and the need to reach the “missing middle”, i.e. those not covered by social insurance or social assistance, while the IMF recognises the logic of universal responses, at least in the short term.  One can only hope that this will herald a move away from the narrow means-tested targeting (and problematic proxy means-tests) strongly advocated in the past.  Targeting methods though have long been criticised for their arbitrariness, exclusion errors and stigmatising effects, not to mention their higher administrative costs. Another desirable outcome would be to avoid cumbersome and punitive behavioural conditionalities often attached to targeted family-oriented cash transfers.  A decade of feminist research demonstrates the detrimental effects conditionalities may have in contexts where quality public services are in short supply and where intersecting forms of discrimination mean that well-intended programme requirements easily slip into coercive and disempowering implementation practices. These concerns together with the exigencies of mitigating the crisis can open the door in many more countries to both universal child benefits (UCBs)[1] and universal social pensions – two core components of a social protection floor.

Take the instructive example of UCBs. These can be potent tools for reducing poverty, as evidenced by existing UCB experience and by country simulations. When compared with benefits for children using narrow targeting, UCBs often perform better in terms of poverty reduction. Moreover, UCBs directly fulfil child rights, better ensure early childhood development needs, and incentivise birth registration by helping to link parents with essential social services. There is also great potential for universal social pensions to reach the more than 80 per cent of older women and men over statutory retirement age in low-income countries who currently do not receive a pension. This is particularly important given the disproportionate threat to the health, rights and socio economic well-being of older persons caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

With UCBs alone, globally, it would be possible to reach two-thirds of all households (because they include children).[2] In Sub-Saharan Africa, for example, where social protection coverage tends to be particularly patchy, more than three-quarters of all households include children below the age of 18. Taking into account the age composition of the population living in poverty – 44 per cent of those living in extremely poor households, subsisting on less than $1.9 per day, are children below 15 – UCBs would not only reach many households in general, but many households living in poverty. Universal social pensions, in turn, could reach one-fifth of all households globally, or roughly 15 per cent of households in Sub-Saharan Africa.

The renewed interest in universal approaches is also evident in the lively debates about the promises of a Universal Basic Income (UBI), especially an ‘emergency’ UBI as a crisis response (ECLAC, Standing). Yet, in order to achieve the objective of ensuring a basic level of income security, not any UBI will do. The impact a UBI will have largely depends on its design, including the level of benefit it provides, how it is financed, and how it relates to existing tax and social security systems. UBI proposals are indeed very diverse and guided by different motivations – ranging from interest in its emancipatory potential (i.e. expanding choices and resourcing meaningful autonomy), to concerns about cost-savings or reducing the size of the state. In a context of fiscal belt-tightening, there are justified concerns that UBIs may be promoted to replace contributory social security systems that offer higher levels of protection, undermine workers’ rights and crowd-out public investment in essential services, thereby reinforcing their unchecked privatization.

Unlike a “thin’’ or minimalist understanding of a UBI, the concept of universal social protection is firmly grounded in the international human rights framework and encompasses three key aspects: (1) universal coverage ensuring that everyone is protected; (2) comprehensiveness of protection for the full range of contingencies covered; and (3) the adequacy of benefit levels to support a dignified life. Universal social protection means that everybody is adequately protected against the full range of risks throughout the life course, but this does not require that everybody receives a benefit at every point in time. It also allows for differentiation of needs (ILO 2019). For instance, targeting within universalism means that groups or individuals that require additional or different kinds of support, for example indigenous communities or persons with disabilities, can receive it.  Similarly, UBIs do not differentiate between adults with different needs and responsibilities; yet without sufficient public investment in quality care services, women’s ability to access employment is likely hampered.  

Last but not least, a human-centred recovery requires a ‘jobs-rich’ response, including the creation of millions of much-needed decent jobs in the care sector, now deemed ‘essential’, and the green economy.  Not only does employment have intrinsic rewards given its social dimensions and ramifications, it also generates (through taxes and social contributions) most of the resources needed to finance a comprehensive and universal social protection system. A concern with some variants of UBI is that by de-linking employment from social protection the benefits they offer can be overly thin.

If the pandemic has a silver lining, one hopes that it spurs governments to deliver on their promise to achieve universal social protection by 2030, to expand access to health services, sickness benefits, paid family leave, unemployment protection and other types of social protection benefits. Only then will our societies and economies be able to weather the COVID-19 pandemic – and the other crises to come.

[1]        UCBs are a cash or tax transfer paid to households with children, unconditionally and on a regular basis.

[2] All the figures in this paragraph are preliminary calculations based on UN DESA (2019).

[aedraeatingdisordercentre]

Negative body image

Negative Body Image and eating disorders

We all have a body-image. Beginning at birth, body image develops as we experience life, incorporating the messages of our personal experiences and of the culture, (through adverts, movies, the internet) into the picture that forms in our mind’s eye. Ideally, this inner self-image is going to be mostly positive; I say 'mostly' because I've yet to come across someone with a 100% positive body image, as everyone seems to find some fault with the way they look, but the ideal would clearly be a good balance of seeing the good and accepting the not-so-good. Body image isn’t a uni dimensional construct. It’s actually made up of four aspects:

Perceptual body image: how you see your body

Affective body image: how you feel about your body

Cognitive body image: how you think about your body

Behavioural body image: the way you behave as a result of your perceptual, affective, and cognitive body image (NEDC, 2017) 

Body image concerns are beginning at an increasingly young age and  often endure throughout life. By age 6, girls especially start to express concerns about their own weight or shape, and 40-60% of elementary school girls (ages 6-12) are concerned about their weight or about becoming too fat.(1) . Furthermore, over one-half of teenage girls and nearly one-third of teenage boys use unhealthy weight control behaviours such as skipping meals, fasting, smoking cigarettes, vomiting, and taking laxatives (2).

BIOLOGICAL EXPLANATIONS

Researchers are increasingly finding a biological basis for negative and distorted body image within eating disorders. A team led by Henrik Ehrsson, a neuroscientist at University College London,  identified that the parietal cortex generates the body image. Disruption of this region's normal functioning could play an important role in conditions such as anorexia and body dysmorphic disorder.Other research has found that different sub-types of eating disorders, with their cognitive differences, may be related to the activation of different parts of the brain;  with the amygdala being significantly activated in AN-R (restrictive anorexia) patients, AN-BP (anorexia binge-purge) patients, and healthy women, and The prefrontal cortex (PFC) was significantly activated in AN-BP patients and healthy women, but not in AN-R and BN (bulimia nervosa) patients. Brain activation pattern differences between the various EDs may underlie cognitive differences with respect to distorted body image, and therefore might reflect a general failure to represent and evaluate one's own body in a realistic fashion (3)

CRITICAL SELF-TALK AND POOR BODY-IMAGE

The biological explanations for the existence of this dysfunctional scheme for self-evaluation within so many people with eating disorders, doesn't mean the issues can't be addressed. We can tackle poor body image at several levels, not least the constant flow of self-critical thinking that ensures negative self-image becomes entrenched enough to be central to our actions, relationships and approach to life and cause everything we say, do and think to become distorted by the lens of this belief about ourselves. People with eating disorders, as well as survivors of trauma, tend to fix their attention on these distorted perceptions of themselves. In an attempt to avoid these ' felt' connections they may numb feelings and sensations to stifle overwhelming emotions, and engage in punitive and negative thoughts and self talk regarding their perceptions of themselves (4)Because of the deep interconnectness of our body with our thoughts, attitudes and feelings, the body and mind cannot be treated independently of one another (5)

STARTING TO HEAL POOR BODY IMAGE

Developing or increasing our capacity to resolve  damaging body-image issues must include examining what underlies the negative perceptions and feelings. Exploring the impact of your self-perception  has to  include an emphasis on living “in” rather then controlling the body.All too commonly those of us with EDs see ourselves as failures, disappointments and burdens to their families and loved ones. There is, more often than not, a voice stuck on a continual loop repeating that we're worthless and possibly even telling us that nobody would care if we weren't around.These emotions are felt and experienced in the body, (with me it was always like a cold weight in my chest) ; it can be a knot in the stomach that can make you feel heavy, weighed down and hopeless that things will ever feel different. Nothing ever feels quite real, and no accomplishment (getting the 'right' job, or the  'best' qualifications or whatever) will feel quite enough.

THERAPY FOR  POOR BODY-IMAGE

In order to begin working on poor body image psycho-education , experiential therapy and therapy informed by psychodynamic counselling can help work on enhancing your strengths (we do all have them!) and begin to re-balance our body image so that negative thoughts are no longer dominant. We can learn to identify how our self-perception takes form and exists in our body, and how we express this through our body language. This sort of therapy involves helping understand how we see ourselves, and, importantly, how we believe or perceive that others see us. In order to properly understand and challenge how our body- image impacts our lives we must explore and develop strategies to resolve these damaging body-image issues.When you feel you are turning towards disordered patterns as a response to stress, anxiety or other feelings of being overwhelmed, therapy can help you learn to use these feelings or distortions as a warning that you are having a conflict; this can be an important way to identify what feels wrong, so you can choose to take positive, healthy action and avoid lapses in your eating disorder recovery.

The use of Dance/Movement Therapy (DMT) as one of several types of expressive therapy can help address poor body-image.Using carefully monitored movements and breathing techniques, DMT can help you to develop body awareness and tolerance. 

Expressive movement techniques are developed by the therapist to embody understanding of emerging issues and this movement work is processed on a body level as well as a cognitive level. Using  journals or worksheets to externalise insights on body image can create a useful resource to establish 'mini-goals': from this you can create action plans on body image issues. Feedback from your therapist or coach provides further direction and support, along with a framework for guidelines for further exploration of body image issues

We may use an eating disorder (once it has been triggered and become established) to make us feel less anxious and more in control . It can quite successfully move the focus away from the things that we don't want to address or feel, like the effects of our poor body-image. Self-compassion work, and therapies such as Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)  can help us find ways to acknowledge, accept and learn how to express our feelings. A 2011 Harvard study found that mindfulness techniques, especially meditation, helped create measurable differences on sense of self.

TIPS TO START WORKING ON  YOUR BODY IMAGE TODAY

1. QUESTION WHAT THE MEDIA IS TELLING YOU

Always question what you're being sold by adverts on TV, magazines, the internet. The diet industry is massive, generating approx $68.2 billion a year globally, and continues to grow by exploiting and manipulating poor body-image and low self-esteem. These messages are constant and unrelenting, telling us we have to buy their products and their programmes to get 'bikini ready' or  banish that cellulite' , " bounce back after baby" or "fight for those six back abs"; we're always being told we should regard some foods as 'bad' or 'naughty' , trying to convince us that there's one version of beauty, an acceptable template we should spend our lives trying to fit. This, of course, is bullshit. It constantly reinforces the nonsense that thin=good and larger bodied=bad. Our worth is not defined by our weight, the size of our jeans or the shape of our body. We cannot tell the health of a person by the way that they look. The goal has to be to know your value and worth and nurture yourself so you have the energy and vitality to enjoy your life to its fullest.

2. EXPLORE YOUR BELIEFS AND VALUES

Take time to dig down and explore your own thought patterns and beliefs. It might help to keep a thought log during your day and find a therapist, coach or trusted friend you can explore these with. Where did your beliefs come from? What purpose have they served for you? Is there validity and truth to them or are they beliefs that you are able to challenge and unpack?

 3. GO THROUGH YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA

Begin unfollowing accounts that make you feel bad about yourself, like you need to change who you are or like you’re not doing enough . Social media can be a great thing and it can also be dangerous, for example, higher levels of Instagram use has been linked to significantly increased symptoms of orthorexia. Setting firm boundaries for yourself such as who you follow and how much time you spend on it can help keep it a positive tool (there are some great apps that can help with this)

4. OFFER YOUR BODY RESPECT

Self-love may seem a long way off, but you can practise respecting it and taking care of it. Respecting your body means appreciating it for all of the great things it does for you. Respecting it also looks like listening to and trusting your body's messages and needs. Focusing on what your body can DO over how your body looks can help begin this process.

5.  CHOOSE KINDNESS

In the simplest terms, be kind. Begin noticing the negative things you are thinking to yourself and substitute it with something kind and compassionate. A great exercise to practice is 'the criticiser, the criticised and the compassionate observer'. When you have a negative thought say it out loud. This is the criticiser. Next follow it up with the person being criticised. Begin to challenge those negative beliefs out loud. Lastly, practice speaking from a place of compassion. Saying it out loud can begin to put things into perspective and offer you a chance to really challenge your thoughts.Negative body image will never heal by changing what our body looks like. It needs to be really tackled where it starts, on the inside. The process is challenging and can take a long-time, but it can be transformational.

References

(1) Smolak, 2011

(2) Neumark- Sztainer, 2005

(3)  Brain activation during the perception of distorted body images in eating disorders.

Miyake Y1, Okamoto Y, Onoda K, Kurosaki M, Shirao N, Okamoto Y, Yamawaki S. .

(4) Kleinman, 2009

(5) Ressler & Kleinman, 2012

[misswsposts]

You are always more important...

You Are Always More Important

“What concept, what belief, what rule can make people see what they don’t want to see? As long as other people’s pain is less important than your own issues.” - Meltem Arikan, Enough is Enough.

I am a performer currently working on a theatre production, a piece of “artivism” called Enough Is Enough. It is a feminist piece shouting out about patriarchy and violence against women and children. It’s a powerful, thought-provoking piece with important points and a strong statement and it’s a remarkably rewarding experience to be a part of it. 

I am also an ethical vegan and can’t help but notice parallels between the abuse of women and children with animal abuse. I don’t need to tell you about how the meat and dairy industries breed animals solely for our consumption, genetically modify them to have unnatural, painful defects which make them tastier and commercially viable, enslave them in pens, cages and sheds, violate their sexual organs on “rape racks” (it’s an industry term), steal their babies, murder them, chop them up, rip feathers from their living bodies, peel off their skin while they’re conscious. I don’t need to go into details because WE ALL KNOW what goes on. Everybody who eats a kebab or drinks a glass of milk knows how it got from the animal to their stomach. Why then, when we are all aware of it, do we continue to allow it? Because you are always more important, that’s why. Society has brainwashed the vast majority into believing its acceptable behaviour. People truly believe that because they enjoy the taste of bacon or cheese, it is worth sacrificing the comfort and entire life of another being. It’s worth someone losing his or her ENTIRE life, the only thing they possess, for a brief minute on your lips and a few hours of tummy fulfilment. We turn a blind eye to the abuse because it’s so inherent and normalised in our society. Smiling cartoon chickens and cows laugh at us from TV screens and billboards. “EAT ME” they dare us. But we all know, it’s not the animals themselves challenging us to savour their flesh, it’s their masters, humans. There’s another parallel here. When we see a woman in her underwear advertising a product on television or on a billboard, she has been placed there by a man, daring the audience to consume her with their eyes. Feminists call them up on the exploitation, the male gaze is criticised, all the while, the hypocrites are tucking into sushi made from a fish who has been traumatised, murdered and stolen from its environment through no fault of its own. 

But why is it OK to treat animals as subservient creatures we can dominate? Surely women can identify with them? The feeling of helplessness, being controlled, having no voice in a world created for them by others who are not like them. We justify it by saying animals are less intelligent than us, they lack reasoning and understanding. But how much intellect does one need to feel pain? It’s a basic feeling shared by all animals and some plants. Anybody who’s stepped on a dog’s foot will be familiar with the bloodcurdling yelp that follows. We’ve all seen a cat head for the warmest, most comfortable area of the living room. But cats and dogs have a special kind of relationship with humans. They are members of our family. We curse those who mistreat pets, yet all the while, we are shovelling a once living, breathing pig between our teeth. If we are using intelligence as a gauge, it’s misguided. Pigs have been proved to be more intelligent than dogs, and as intelligent as a three-year old human. The argument for intelligence doesn’t stand up, otherwise we’d be enjoying roast toddler of a Sunday. 

The real reason is speciesism. Another “ism” alongside racism, sexism, ageism, and all the other words which describe discrimination. It’s the last taboo but is just as relevant. Numbers-wise it effects more beings in our shared world than any of the other “isms”. In the early days of feminism and the civil rights movement, people mocked activists fighting for change. People were blinded by the system and comfortable with how things were. They couldn’t see the point of fighting for change, at least those people who weren’t suffering couldn’t. But the difference is that the victims had voices and the ability to fight against their oppressors. Their movements gathered momentum from those who were once complacent and they continue fighting to this day. But animals don’t have voices, or at least not ones able to communicate with humans. Their screams, yelps and cries are never in adverts. They are silenced, yet they exist. Animals are unable to unite and stand together, form unions, create Facebook groups. They’re the most vulnerable inhabitants on our planet. It’s for this reason I and others are speaking out for them, and yes, our cause is gathering momentum.

Animals breathe, feel pain, seek warmth, shit, have sex, shiver, feel fear, run away from or fight threatening behaviour, sigh, yawn, eat, drink and fuck, just as we do. How are they really different from us on a basic level? Why do we not give them the same respect we give other humans? Because they look, and think differently? Women look and feel differently to men, children look and think differently to adults. We wouldn’t tolerate that as a reason to abuse women and children so why do we tolerate it for animals? I can’t see the logic behind the justification of animal abuse.  

I’m surrounded by animal exploitation and have realised that like the women featured in the play, I too am part of the system. I hear jokes about meat and veganism, and rather than shout out about it, for the most part I stay silent. Compliant. Because I don't want to appear difficult or have my outgoing, fun reputation tarnished. I am more important. I now see I’m no better than the mothers who let their husbands abuse their children for an easy life. I’m no better than women who brush off the banter which oppresses them. Why? Because veganism is still a taboo. If a bandmate had brought back a 12 year old girl to our digs to sleep with, the rest of us would speak out, yet I watch people drink the juice from a raped female cow who has had her most precious child stolen from her and I stay silent. Dairy cows are voiceless females and I am a feminist who is not standing up for them. I am not taking part in the abuse personally but I am doing little to stop it. I remember the works of Edmund Burke, ”The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." I am angry with myself, but feel helpless at the same time. 

Animal rights activists are painted as weirdos or extremists. But what is extreme about eating a plant-based diet and feeling compassion for and empathy with the oppressed? How is it more extreme to choose to eat an avocado for breakfast than somebody’s legs? I’m not even getting started on the environmental impact of meat and dairy. I choose a cruelty-free diet because the choice is there. Even in the smallest towns and villages I’ve found plant-based foods. I have the privilege of choice, unlike animals. They don’t choose to be born into an unjust society. When people “choose” to eat meat, they do not like to think their choices have a victim behind them, but they do. Choices should not have victims. 

Peers often pity me for not eating the tasty cake or rack of ribs they are enjoying, but believe me, I do not feel hard done by. I only have to think of the poor creatures who’ve suffered to end up in your hands and any feelings for myself go out the window. How can I feel bad about missing out on tasting chicken soup when those chickens missed out on happiness, comfort and life itself?

 Discrimination of all forms should be fought and challenged, whether it's the rights of women, children, religious groups or animals. The first step is getting people to see their actions are harming others and have an effect. People need to open their eyes to new ideas, be open to criticism and more flexible in their way of thinking, but it's difficult when society has been hard-wired to be a certain way and when those in power don't share the same ideals. I truly believe there will be a point in the future when people will look back on our society's treatment of animals and view us the way as we view slave drivers during the years of the Transatlantic Slave Trade or the Nazis during the Holocaust, but in the meantime and to reach that stage, we must be non-compliant, continue to shout out and share the real life stories of all victims to incite positive change from the bottom up.

[antinonymous]

Love never changes.  Nor does it eat, nor age, nor laugh, nor blink, It’s war. I’ve lived a life with many men who only ever use anger and joy to justify feeding and breeding constant war. Hate adapts and evolves. The difference between the two can seem blurry, but when the line between love and hate is stark, you’ll know. But you can’t always. That fantastical shit can’t exist. No, there’s a bunch of times where one must scream incoherently and without language to convey indescribable human emotions. Sometimes, that’s the only way to rid oneself of such feelings.

This right here is my personal masterpost and autobiography.

Even in the grim excesses and radically-different expressions of the human form, it is always just that- human. But though every human is human, not all humans are humane. What good is a human who only wants for themselves? What good is any thief or hoarder? That’s an unnatural human; a walking corpse designed by generations upon generations of class division and specific manufactured complacency in postmodernity.

In my story I encountered several fiends involved with thievery and acrimony. Why would anyone try to say there is a good thief? Where is the justification for mass destruction for brief momentary pleasure and profit? What justifications can someone possibly have for exploitation, mechanisation, and, again, general thievery imposed against the majority of humankind? Where’s the love in that? The rich will take and hoard all they can and make sure the needy and impoverished will die off, and that gives them their sickening feeling of love, which complacency then turns into the norm. Workers below are commanded “die off and shut up”. And I’m aware this is a tumblr post, so I trust you know that a plurality of folk receive such a message. I have, and perhaps you have too.

As I type this, I’m beginning to question how I should even say what I need to. Power is a strange thing. Having the ability to affect others’ actions is the definition I was given for it (as well as a confusion with it and Newtonian physics in my youth). The origins of where those in power come from often involves going through hundreds of years of violence. For example, stuff X is his. Why is it his? His great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather stole X from everyone else who had a say on it and had fewer qualms about using whatever means to get X. Now everyone agrees X is rightfully his when it almost always is obviously not. There’s a lot of powerful power analogies I could use, but I’ll keep this post spiritual.

Many will criticise, say, the Christian religion, due to the abhorrent, bastardly and genocidal ways with which they’ve gained and kept their power, particularly in Europe and the Americas. However, the history of early Christianity shows an absurd cabaret of many characters, some of whom I’d coöperate with, in another life. My favourite is Valentine. Why? Because he is a joke relic of history; a legend so cool that nobody ever decided to soberly (or accurately) figure out his or their life or lives. There were many Christians at the time with his name, and the stories people have of him/them are all over the place. Reading about ‘him’ is like looking into the files of a bunch of stoners who can never properly sort their shit, saying “yeah man this Valentine guy cured this old hag…or maybe... no she was like 18... anyway… and he, like, made them hear because they were deaf!” And then another guy says that the girl was blind and could then see, and that that particular guy wasn’t actually Valentine but possibly someone else (or maybe even 20 people; apparently it was a very popular name at the time).

An early memetic guy was he, who was such a courageous badass (or dumbass) that the stories don’t really have to make sense or be consistent- his character of a martyr helping Christians get Christian weddings during the time of illegal Christianity just sounds like the type of radical non-conformist that modern Christianity needs. He did what he felt was right and told Roman authority to fuck off. When Rome became Christian, the Christian became Roman. Rome was, of course, decadent. Thus became the Christian. The Roman elite had stolen Christianity from the poor and subverted it to justify later European atrocities for profit.

But the original idea is still there- where the weak can feel as safe and strong as the already powerful. Modern Christianity is such a watered-down, bigoted bore. What happened to those willing to behead or get beheaded for to fight against oppressive systems of power? Or of the teachings to men to gouge out their eyes so as to not sin against women? As someone who loves salty food, I must admit that modern Christians are not the Salt of the Earth, but rather the Grease of the Earth. Peanut Butter and such.

You could easily describe me as angry. Anger is a bit of a drug that can appear to try to assist in any and every given situation. Despite the many times I may have let my anger go too far, I don’t get bogged down in my regrets because of the outlandish and downright advantageous times where said anger has helped me deal with nasty people who hate general humanity and only crave destruction if and when it means they can profit. Many of these people use the Christian god to justify their own expansion. Nowadays the Christians and romantic, godless Pagans are both plebeians with the actual patricians now wealthier than ever; we fight and snatch what little we have from the claws of a pesky, greedy, and stubborn crab while said crab says it is handing out all it has. As if.

Valentine did likewise in the Roman Empire. He wanted to let others feel validated as they loved one another, to the death, and if he’d seen the church’s vast history of refusing to let others be themselves and love who they love, that he’d have been agitated at that. It makes you wonder if heaven is now filled with anti-Christian converts who collectively decided “fuck, we all fell for a scam!”

As you can tell, this is gonna be a long one. My story is profane but it’s the life I’ve lived. If you can’t already tell, I’m a bit unsure as to where to start. I don’t want people identifying me but I’ve never stood out. I’m neither tall nor short- 5′7″. I have green eyes, and I have i have dirty blond hair that’s thick yet soft. I indulged in henna in my youth; by age 6 I was a regular to having sleeves. I’ve personally never been one to dress fancy-like. For most of my childhood and adolescence I exclusively wore black, white, green, yellow, and red. One for each day of the work-week. These weren’t always worn in that order, but it was a tradition for me to wear them because I didn’t bother to look any different. Lazy, sure. But it’s not like you’re gonna come in from the screen and get me and tell me ‘I should’ve been more outgoing in my youth’. I was raised to not care about superficial stuff like that by my mom, Eunice

She died in 2007 from stomach cancer. My dad was already a mildly incessant depressant from a poor, sad family, so he never really got over her loss.

The Housing Market Crisis© the following year left my uncle, a financial business executive, completely broken and destitute. He lost a considerable fortune and could no longer to afford his home, rendering him unemployed and homeless. This meant he had to move in with my widowed father and my motherless self. I remember seeing a distinct change in his behaviour from him as he no longer treated corporate and government higher-ups with the same respect he once had; now heavily invested in organised economic ideas he’d dismissed in his youth. I was concerned but my dad was still far too sad to care. In the end it ended up being benign and incredibly beneficial.

I remember specifically having to point out to people which of them was which in my youth, due to their similar, slender, pale appearances with dense strawberry-blond hair and the same bright shade of blue eyes. My father, Yves, got many (ink) tattoos for my mom, but also for myself, his family, his love of art, mythology and more. He showed them to anyone who’d ask. My uncle, Wymer, wore heavier clothing to try to stand out but people would still mistake him for my dad being all covered up or what have you. He had to work at Walmart©, and when I told him to wear his fucking uniform out in public to differentiate him from my dad, he responded by growing a beard and never once shaving it. He also decided to never get tattooed whatsoever, and to bring books with him wherever he went because everyone in town knew Dad didn’t read a lot. The two together were altogether sad, angry, but nevertheless goofed. 

I won’t lie, saying that line to him was rude, classist, and bitchy on my part, but in the end he had a righteous fuckin’ red bush on his face which covered his mouth and neck. He was stubborn like that- to make subtle reminders of others’ statements to him was always amongst his goals, and he really enjoyed that follicle expansion.

Their differences didn’t end there.

A big one was how extroverted Wymer was compared to his brother. Even around my mom, Dad was always shy, and he frequently put himself through a lot of feeling of self-disgust, self-hate, self-pity, remorse, regret, and seemingly infinite sorrow. He often made long visits to mom’s grave which only gave passerbys the look of a vacuumous void. He was the eldest child in his family, already in his late 50s. He plead hindsight to her early warning signs; saying he “should’ve known better.” I encouraged him to find someone new, but he never dated anyone ever again. In fact, only with the exception of when he got blitzed out of his mind on cocaine in 2010 Christchurch and demanded an aged sex worker, he never even wanted to fuck again. I actually spoke to her before she left our room; I forget her name, that youngblood, for she told me only once, but she told me some stories of the industry down there. She surprised me at the end of the night by saying he spent almost the entire time with her just asking questions about the problems related to said industry; having her nevertheless conclude him a “sadist”. The following morning, he found her again and invited her to brunch, eventually allowing her to stay with us the rest of the trip. She never took her word back on dad or gave us her name. She slept alone, and she got annoyed with dad paying for all her stuff. He wrote to her off and on for the next three years using the pseudonyms she’d give him.

My uncle was more generally angry and restless; wanting to fill people in on what he felt they were missing. He would regularly attend the local bars and it wouldn’t be uncommon for him to leave and come back sober. He just wanted to witness to them folk about stuff such as the labour theory of value, the frequency of market crises, the importance of understanding global industrial pollution or something along those lines. He often complained of his mental health, namely his short attention span’s relationship to his reading. Because of this, despite him having had few years of a head start on me in political economy, I quickly read far more than him. He began paying out of pocket to attend college classes and debate professors to get a 2nd or 3rd or 8th opinion. The 2008 crash shattered his life of finance, such as an earthquake shatters a busy bridge, and he quickly realised that he’d landed far left after the debris settled. He directed his anger at profit-driven actions and abandoned belief in the free market, instead looking for community-made creation/distribution systems. ‘Finally’, he thought, 'I can lash my anger out at those who deserve so much worse than the average, common fiend.’ His willingness to learn and desire to understand were enough for me to ignore his beard’s smell and his pronounced and maddened approaches, countenances, gesticulations, and obsessions. 

None of what I’m saying is a complaint, though. I loved those two. Wymer spent a lot of his time online reading books, essays, and articles on the environment, philosophy, world history, sociology, the residue of western colonialism, and systemic societal buffoonery. He also wrote about communist witch-hunts and handed pamphlets of his thoughts to the townspeople, which the local cops weren’t ever pleased with. He was never much of a good economist but he had grand social scope. In 2019, y’all’d call him ‘woke.’ Meanwhile, Yves would spend his time painting or playing croquet with the neighbours in the backyard. He had a bit of a substance abuse problem which he always seemed to be weaker than. The cigarette lighter industry loved him. If he read at all, it’d be some cheesy novel or children’s literature. He wanted to spread happiness to others as he felt he had none himself. In 2019, y’all’d call him ‘a beta’.

Both of these men were always ones to keep me safe. Mom and dad told me they were my guardians, and my uncle swore the same thing to me after her death. They fought a lot as children but learnt to appreciate one another into adulthood with their mutual love of, among other things, listening to metal. Their quirks were what they were, and few quirks can distract from basic kindness, humility and human decency. This meant they were hostile towards all that I deemed a threat. This was such a honour I had to have those good, safe people with me. And seeing as it were that I was the only openly gay girl living in a conservative Christian town, I couldn’t have had a safer upbringing. I was a ‘witch’ surrounded by a bunch of Puritans, Papists, Quakers and Messianics who all seemed to behave similar to, and want to live in, a golden moral past which never actually existed. My father and uncle were truly the best men I ever knew, and everyone else knew that (maybe they even knowingly acted upon it). I lived in an apathetic town. ‘Other people are not my concern.’ Those people shit on the idea of being ethical, except for my home.

Every time that I’d have friends over, they’d say that our family dynamic was the best they’d ever been to before the end of their first visit. Every single time. And they knew it was because we all had a respect of each other and a desire to understand ourselves in there. I really wanted to help both of them out and they felt the same for me. My dad was specifically very gung-ho on wanting the boys at school to leave me alone. In fact, that was among the first things he said when he found out- he actively called out death to all those who sought to wish me harm, and he kept going on about contacting the school. Mom and Wymer did the same. It was a bit much, and as much as I loved and appreciated him loving and accepting me for who I am, again, it was a bit much. I’m not short and I have never lost a fight. A small part of me thinks that Yves was just scared that in whatever harassment scandal he’d imagined that I’d come out as victor and be convicted of manslaughter.

He put a lot of effort into protecting me to distract himself from the fact that I, spiritually, was now protecting him. Appearances deceive. He never fully learnt that from me.

He also forgot my friends Shane, Mack, and Albin. These boys were quick to learn and prudent in judgment. They were among the first I came out to since they were generally nice, soft-spoken nihilists who didn’t flirt with any girl or woman under any circumstances. They all generally looked alike, so it’d always be easy to look for them in the streets. These three hated each other but were the type of outcasts too lazy to care about making other friends. We all loved playing soccer and othergames Yu-Gi-Oh, Pokémon and Magic the Gathering as kids. Since we grew up in the same neighbourhood, we played with each other enough to turn our friendship unbreakable. We all had a sacred blood-bond in our own type of weeaboo mysticism.

At some point in 8th grade I made them all swear a type of Knight’s oath in service to none other than me if and when other boys wouldn’t take 'no’ for an answer. I was going through an edgy phase so my exact wording was probably something more like an order to “defend their queen against normie, goblin scum” or something to that effect. They and I all read the same fantasy and sci-fi bullshit so I really wanted my message to stick like jizz glue. I was their queen because I always beat them at their games. I always found the rarest Pokémon wasting the least amount of Pokéballs. I always found the most Minecraft diamonds. I always ended up killing the most enemies on COD. That shit was glorious; if only Twitch© were a thing back then. When you’re a girl and you’re consistently better at games than a cis male gamer, boy oh boy does it upset them. Normally it angers them, but these three specifically were far too nihilist to be that rude- my skillz instead humbled them, and a bunch of kids in my position would milk friendships like that for all it’s worth. Those three agreed and kept their word in flame.

This plan sorta backfired. The boys stopped flirting with me and knew I sought no romance with them, good, but now all the girls avoided me and started giving me harsh glares (One even gave a free pink King James Bible, with the irony sadly being entirely lost on my giver). I didn’t quite realise my plan immediately led to them telling others. In hindsight, that should’ve been more obvious. I felt a formidable and frosty chill from said others, as well as glares that made me feel like I was a carefully-watched animal. I’m thankful that dad and Wymer didn’t allow me to have a smartphone at that time, because cyberbullying has always been such a steaming pile of aardvark mucus, and I, in middle school, needed to see none of what they wrote.

Most of the staff pretended not to notice and gave slaps on the wrist for punishment. But I had a secret weapon- friends and family who always loved me despite not always trying to understand me. They meant well in defiance of their occasional insensitivity, their budding awareness of ignorances and their lack of any idea of what it was they were trying to do.

It was all I had; better than nothing- better than many. They’d listen. Listening is classically underrated; people have spent way too long not shutting the fuck up. This allowed them to try to understand. When you get someone primed for some understanding, then can you extol to them whatever bullcrap it is you must say. And, if in-fact Yves and Wymer understood, then they’d go apeshit for the next week and a half on the staff. They never realised how often my friends got suspended for the same reason.

There’s several good tales I could tell, but my favourite started by Albin simply talking to a school administrator about certain new policies which seemed to be very excessively Christian-in-nature and vaguely queerphobic. He was irate that he wasn’t able to go to a school dance with Shane, since Mack was my date and we didn’t care to go with other people. This staff member was higher up than a mere teacher so he was in a position to cast judgment on my friend. But Albin always fucking hated this guy so he didn’t cower in fear. This administrator was a real prick and everyone there knew it, so when Shane and Mack heard them two screaming in an abandoned hallway, they went to the source of the sound, with Shane recording on his camera. He recorded a short, rambunctious, vague, and incoherent dialogue with the two which included the administrator saying, among other things, that he’d “wipe the school clean of all you disrespectful millennial f*ggots”. Albin went full steam ahead through that horsecrap, instantly declaring him a kind of religious oligarchical czar; saying to him that he was forcing the school board to bow down before a type of ugly deity.

“It may as well be called Holy Law! Whoever does not fall down and worship shall be instantly cast into a white-hot furnace? Is that what you’re saying? That’s basically what you’re saying! Obey or perish! Is that what you want? Will you condemn those who you refuse to let exist?” The administrator made them leave their space when he realised a sizable crowd had watched him make an ass of himself.

Before he could leave, however, Mack joined in- “Hey administrator-”

The administrator genuinely looked at Mack as if he were expecting cold-hard cash- as if Mack was going to be a perfectly obedient, whipped coward. That stupid man had no true emotions. Mack said,

“If our god, whom we now serve, can save us from the white-hot furnace and from your hands, oh mister, may he save us! But even if he will not, know, oh you, we will not serve your interpretation of god or worship your fools-gold societal standards which you set up!” Shane was laughing the whole time.

They all got 8 days suspension for that, 8 times longer than normal. The administrator thankfully got fired, though, for the content of what was recorded. I have no idea where the worship ceremony thing came in but I loved it, and ‘the white-hot furnace’ was our class’ inside joke for the rest of the year. In town we’d hear “Look! I see four of y’all walking around in the fire, unbound and unharmed, and the fourth looks like one of the gods.”

This was typical in my hometown of Yeastville for what seemed like a very long time. It was claustrophobic and filled with a lot of frustrating people, but I knew I had it better than many others in my position. Wymer in particular was always a strange source of comfort with all his bitterness toward the rich and his genuine tenderness towards almost everything and everyone else (except those amongst us poor who wish to maintain the status quo of the current flow of capital; he had no sympathy for those who defend parasites). On my 16th birthday he gave me lectures, essays, rants, and even comedy bits in a type of crash-course on women, communism, class-conflict, and the nightmare of ecology, with tons of books. I literally have never met or heard of anyone learning Marxist theory from their uncle. Dad was never much into politics which let him and I go buck wild with reading. They both also allowed me to get the internet in my pocket, allowing me to access all of recorded human knowledge. Learning the hardships of life throughout history all relating to the ways European colonisation and christianisation made their effects on the world made perfect sense when I considered how Shane, Mack and Albin always had a type of assurance that they’d be alright in the end after getting in trouble at school and that I’d always end up getting shat on by most of the rich, Christian staff. We’re living in a society. Uncle Wymer was a very staunch commie who never tried to make enemies, but rather had among the softest of intent all the while nevertheless gathering more and more enemies. Having a man like that in my proximity, in the country, is luck. Dad gave me life and general feelings of warmth and love but Wymer gave feelings of inter-personal and inter-sectional solidarity with red-tinted love. 

They were both very optimistic yet sad.

However, if I had been raised in any other home at any other time by any other parent or guardian then I’d never have realised my potential that I and y'all have to be the type of total badass who writes shit like this. Those two always told me to strive for what I want and need, no matter what society’s expectations are. You’re always you, yourself, and the stains of other people, so get some fucking confidence. When I was put through the fear of 2013, that confidence gave me wings with which I’ve soared ever since.

Back in early 2011, a new girl came to the first day of school. She was in my grade and all we were told about her was that she was colourblind, tall, and from a rich family. I clearly remember thinking thinking was going to hate her, as I assumed she was going to the type of bitch spoiled by an extravagant and decadent bourgeois family- the type Wymer would always warn about.

When she walked into homeroom, she was looking at her feet. She was visibly nervous and uncomfortable. She was indeed less than a foot shorter than our 6'7″ teacher, Mr. Young (no relation). She was lanky with medium-length black hair. She looked tired and thoroughly spooked, with a thoroughly frightened glare in her big, green eyes. She wore a medium-length beige dress with dark boots. She’s giggling next to me as I type this. Whatever, lovely. I don’t want people identifying you either.

She eventually started walking toward me, looking at our first names on the desks placed alphabetical order. I believe in the power of first impressions and she did not meet my expectations.

For context, Yeastville is a poor rural town with few resources which still had 90s technology and desks from the 70s. One of those desks broke with some kid in it as she was passing me, and this pushed her, making her fall on me. She promptly got up, looked at my name on my own desk, said “I’m sorry, Yasmine,” and immediately went to the person who broke their desk, having no discernible concern for her new bruises.

We just so happened to have some extra desks so there was no actual problem, it just became the story of the day. After staff made sure everybody was okay, she sat down behind me. I knew I’d never known anyone named ‘Ymir’. She formally introduced herself by apologising profusely and showering me in compliments. This was not the behaviour I’d expect from someone from her family. She was different than any rich folk I’d heard about from the news, books, or from Wymer. Then again, he wouldn’t necessarily have been researching the children of millionaires.

And yes, she was very rich. Her father was a lying lobbyist-loving liberal- a bureaucratic Bonapartist shitlord by the name of Yair Yellowhammer. I’d like to once again clarify that I’m not short, but he wasn’t much taller than me, so he actually was short. Very short. Fucking shrimp. He had meticulous, balding grey/blond hair with a big nose, filthy ears, and a carnivorous smile. His eyes always had anger within them and they were a shade of brown akin to an overcrowded prison’s cesspool. Wymer had told me about him from his twitter©, of all places. Yes, a logging company with which the congressman worked had been looking to send lots of working class folk into our vast forest, making way for chicken farms among other things.  He had moved to town because it’s still within his district but remote enough to make his poor and willingly-ignorant supporters think he fought for them in any way. Yellowhammer advanced ahead policy which would benefit his bank account and kill his enemies the fastest every single time, and Wymer’s comrades were always there to complain about the hideousness of it all. In 2019, y’all’d follow him on Twitter© a lot more.

I soon clearly saw, though, that all I knew of her father had to be cast aside because ‘for now’, I thought, ‘she’s not being hostile. Is she an enemy? Time will tell.’ I had to suck in repulsion to her family and bite my lip as we all waited for the bell to ring. This got harder to do as the day went on. She and I shared many of the same classes, and they all put the students in alphabetical order, so I was forced to spend even more time with her.

But I noticed her act like myself. Mannerisms of my persona with individual agony. At some point she said that she enjoyed my smile the most ‘out of all that she’d seen.’ All? I was nervous, genuinely starting to wonder that she was not who I thought she was. I asked about Yellowhammer and her expression turned glum. She was his daughter and she wasn’t proud of him. I stopped my questioning when I realised she clearly wasn’t straight and that her dad’s sexist, homophobic rhetoric may have given her a big can of worms that I was not quite yet in a position to open. Every answer I got from my interrogations only made her more visibly uncomfortable. She hated him, and I was now acutely aware of that.

I asked those brothers at home what they thought and they both told me to ‘just go for it.’ This frustrated me because with all I said I never mentioned if I liked her, but that was the extent of their advice. Even Wymer had little to say:

“She sounds like a nice person…she sounds like the reason why Yellowhammer keeps his life private.”

Eventually, I confirmed this. She’s a fine and strong ‘degenerate’ who, in any other form, would easily strike terror into the heart of Yair. But in her true form she was subject to cruelty unlike that seen in most parts of the country. She told me story after story of him forcing her into all sorts of awful shit- from weeks of forced scripture readings, to a specific 2-week stay at conversion camp, and even the threat of circumcision. Her step-mother, Yannick, added to this torment. She had married Yair only to birth a new son who’d receive the Yellowhammer inheritance instead of Ymir, who, like me, was an only child. She said to me it was her speaking out against the loggers and industrial farmers which led him to admit to such a thing. She had no uncles or aunts to turn to, and her grandparents had long since passed.

“You’re meek,” he said, “You already have the earth.”

Shane, Mack and Albin tried to help me help her and were their typical selves after I got a girlfriend, having now the chance to compete amongst themselves in their games without fear of me beating them. We four discovered her love of astronomy and the English language. She also helped those three with their Spanish to the point of the four of them having entire conversations, where I’d mock them all in French.

Those were, and these still are, times of love; romantic and platonic.

This was then how it was for many months, with both of our home lives getting progressively worse. The Yellowhammers became poorer in spirit and my family became poorer in general.

In late 2012, my other uncle and aunt Eugene and Ulysse Yarborough died in a mudslide, leaving my only cousin, Ywain, out in the world on his own. Neither Yves nor Wymer had the proper income to adopt him, so he was forced by the state to enter foster homes. We weren’t ever real close, but I thought about him a lot when I’d consider whatever unimaginable shit he’d have been going through. These thoughts asked similar questions about Ymir.

By senior year, she and I had a bit of a routine where I was, according to the Yellowhammers, her tutor. This was a big, big lie, hiding raged, adolescent fever, which I’d never get into for y'all. I have no need nor desire to indulge you sick fucks with your disgusting, overactive imaginations. I’m no historian, but I would rather refrain from espousing details on this website because I believe it also gave us the word ‘turbovirgins.’

Anyway, the actual most dastardly and illegal thing we’d do was when we’d go on walks and we’d stumble across logging sites in the woods where trees were being cleared. Stories began circulating throughout the people of the town. Everyone started blaming a secret cabal of conspiratorial green-freaks putting sugar into the fuel tanks of the many construction machines. Every single time, however, it was just me, with Ymir keeping watch over my shoulder (except a few times when I went with Wymer; he would always obsessively check every single machine to make sure it was thoroughly fucked for weeks. He never thought he’d ever become too old for that shit). Nobody ever figured us out, and the developers became years behind schedule.

The last time she and I did that was in early February 2013. After looking from our vantage point on a wooded hilltop onto the main street, I saw an unfamiliar face in the Yeastville crowd. No…it was familiar…familial. It was Ywain. He looked dirty and tired. His jeans were green from travelling through grass and his trench-coat was covered in a thick layer of pollen, dust and snow. His scarf was tattered and his short, dense hair was a mess from lack of rest. I knew not of his plans, and I knew Yves and Wymer were also unaware of them, as none of us had been contacted. I thought little of it. Valentine’s day was in less than a week, and I didn’t want to get distracted from the celebration. When I told those two brothers at home, they assured me there was nothing to worry about, letting me sleep.

The day before the holiday, Ymir tells me that her dad would be taking her to a private school within the next two weeks to finish her education. This was his response to her telling him about me, and prom, I guess. ‘Great’, I thought. I never had or wanted any money- just peace of mind. Society’s expectations of a person can truly break them if they aren’t cut out for them, and I was never looking forward to tending the land of the Young Farm- even with the thought of having it with Ymir. This was my only option, since college was basically never an option for my incredibly indebted family.

No, I always wanted to lead a life with the only expectations ahead of me be ones that I placed. Suicide is the easy way out, but I’ve always wanted to deny death, and have personally always been afraid of reincarnation. This means I’ll always either concoct a plan or wait it out. But I was not looking to wait until my heart stopped beating. No, I needed an alternative and I needed understanding. I got the former and have since realised I may never get the latter.

It started at 2200 hours on Valentine’s day. I’d been running late home from a painful get-together with Ymir when I notice my home having broken windows. I looked inwards after having crept forward, and saw Ywain snoring on our couch. He was even more of a mess than before. I scanned in the dark with my vision and saw my father and uncle laying in bloody pools on the floor. I realised now that Ywain had invaded the home to kill all three of us and take all of grandpa’s inheritance for himself.

There were a lot of recent arguments about the inheritance from our grandpa, an old black man named Kanye Young (that really was his name, true story- there’s a hundred rants I memorised of Grandpa Ye having to tell people he generally hated music and wasn’t related to mister West). It all amounted to a little more than $30,000, thanks to government interference. I had asked both grandpa and dad if Ywain could be included in on the inheritance after the accident but all the adults involved refused, citing my aunt Ulysse’s direct orders to not include him. This type of fucking behavior I now saw may have been why. The stories I heard about him were always that he was a self-centred brat who always wanted more than everyone else and felt that he deserved it, and it showed. He would’ve rather killed his family to go through a legal loophole rather than face the fact his past actions made his mother feel the way she felt and try to change for the better.

It seems that after he killed his uncles, he realised his cousin wasn’t home and decided to nap on the couch waiting for me. I wanted to cry, but then I took a second to contemplate my situation, and I saw potential. I now felt I had been offered the strength of the cosmos, but I rejected it, as I was, and still am, so much stronger. I was not about to let myself be a ward of the state. This is not the tone I wanted my story to have. I was not about to abandon their lessons those two gave to me of fighting for what I need and to be an annoying, squatting prick when it’s needed. I was told of a promising future, so who’s to say I can’t build one for myself? In general, what is there to say? I now had motivation to act- to let myself legally die. The potentiality of a plan ran through my body like oxygen-rich blood, so I ran to Ymir’s house with said plan.

She’s next to me as I type this and she and just got into a bit of an argument for that last, misleading sentence. It wasn’t really a plan. Plans have lots of precision, detail and a need to be made with a careful attitude. I, on the other hand, made a glorified to-do list and went into the Yellowhammer residence guns-blazing. Literally.

I had brought out Wymer’s guns and knives for my trip. Wearing his goddamn Mitt Romney mask and dad’s goatskin leather jacket, I looked like both death and a total meme. The Yellowhammer residence was situated on the outskirts of town in a remote location with no neighbours, so I was able to get to their house with no problem. I’d never been able to explore much of it beforehand, but Ymir had described it to me to the point where I could easily go about my way. When I found Yair and Yannick in bed, I even knew the right places to walk to ensure they couldn’t hear me (Ymir said she’d do this to mess with Yair’s stuff as he slept). There was no conflict or fight; it was anticlimactic and faster than it seemed. For her last words, Yannick thanked me.

Ymir, when she eventually ran into me, was understandably nervous, but after I explained everything, she relaxed and asked how she could help. We stole a bunch of gold and clothes before setting the house ablaze.

We ran back to my house, where Ywain was till asleep on my couch. We sneaked up behind him, drugged him, and bludgeoned him until he was completely out of it. We had a bag on his head so he couldn’t see us, and made sure to speak to each other in fake voices in case he could hear. Afterwards, we took off his clothes and replaced them with Yair’s. My plan was that Ywain would then be blamed for the murder of both our families, ourselves, and the Yellowhammer arson.

After we were done with that, we exited my house for the last time. It was around 3 (AM), so the town was still relatively quiet. She was nervous and asked if we could have one last walk through the streets. I made sure to show her all the most beautiful views across many streets. After this, we started walking in the woods toward the city. After changing our names, vocal patterns, styles and certain aspects of our attitude, we were ready to take on the world. It’s 2019 and we still are!

When we got to the city we knew we had to keep a low profile and not try to attract attention. I decided to do this by taking up the mantle from Wymer and I got a job in retail. He’s giving me a grin from heaven. You know the grin; the overtly smug grin that’s only ever 100% condescension, and even when they say they’re not trying to be condescending that just makes you feel it more. Ymir, on the other hand, works at a popular bookstore; keeping stock whilst also writing both book reviews and poetry. We make just enough money to get food, weed, and keep our landlord at bay. I hope you people on this site saw the post about some person who bought a dog whistle to make their landlord’s dogs incessantly bark to the point where the poster could then complain to their landlord that their ‘dogs are barking too much.’ Ymir and I did the same thing, and I recommend it. They’ve probably got the first two Rage Against The Machine albums memorised by this point since that’s all she and I ever listen to. In short, we gave him constant hell.

Things were going surprisingly well for us. It was weird to talk to others about ‘where we came from,’ but we never lied enough to have inconsistencies with our stories. But one day, I had to deal with a co-worker- a Wiseguy. This Wiseguy’s often talkative, but on that day they seemed quiet, tense, anxious, and struck with overwhelming terror- especially when working with me. I asked them if all were well, and they said no. I asked why, and they gave me a look of someone falling to their death.

They swallowed their spit,

“I was watching a YouTube video yesterday about freaky, unexplained crimes, and there was one in particular that caught my attention. A man had apparently killed a congressman and his family, then proceeded to burn down the entire house to ashes before then killing his own two uncles and cousin on the other side of town.”

I looked on, screaming internally, saying calmly,

“…Okay?”

“But,” they continued, “The bodies of the congressman’s daughter and the murderer’s cousin, who was living with his uncles, were never found. There’s also some inconsistencies in the times of death, along with the fact the perpetrator specifically only ever plead guilty of his uncles’ deaths, not that of his cousin or of the congressman’s family.”

I stared in silence. They weren’t done.

“I looked a little into it, and it seems that the congressman’s daughter had a diary that survived the flames. One section that caught my attention was how she was going to have deal with a new baby brother because she was not seen to be a proper heir to the congressman’s wealth.”

This wouldn’t have bothered me at all if Ymir hadn’t told them less than a week prior of her new tragedy involving a tyrant wasting his life in the prospect of a male heir since he hates the princess, our narrator. I felt trapped and exposed. Goddammit, I always told her to check TvTropes© and she never did.

“Are you ready to go?”

It was Ymir. She was standing by my side since her shift had apparently ended early and mine was due to end at any given moment. I turned worryingly to Wiseguy, who had a huge smile on their face. They said,

“I really, really fucking hated Yellowhammer. His death did wonders for the planet, and, uh, I am your friend…so just please tell me what you can when you can!” They then sent me home and walked away.

I eventually told Wiseguy everything. There was no reason to hide; they figured out that I was Yasmine Young. They didn’t have any kind of scared or nervous reaction. Quite the contrary, they were utterly fascinated. And they wanted to help, giving us stuff from make-up tutorials to online spots where we could maintain pseudo-anonymity. They were a comrade much like Wymer, becoming something of my and Ymir’s best friend, being the only one who ever figured us out.

And then, everything went quiet. Nobody said anything after that. ‘Finally,’ I thought, ‘it’s all in the past.’

Last week, after a while of having muscle cramps in our abdominal regions, we learn we both have terminal stomach cancer, the disease that killed both our moms. We can’t afford treatment, and even if we could, we don’t have enough time left to go through thosr miles of legal red-tape. She and I took a while to decide on what we need to do, and we decided to post this. My wife and I have story and we won’t die silently. We have voices that can be heard and words that can be read.

But I’ve said enough about us, back to you, reader- you can do so much better. Practice and improvement is always an option. We, collectively as a people, are stronger than we admit to ourselves. We are the true rulers of the earth; letting a small bunch of ornamental fucks hold our shit for us. The ruling class is a parasite, and like every parasite, it can be killed by, and is smaller than, its host.

Come and get me, INTERPOL, because we have loaded guns and more than enough ammunition to kill ourselves and well over 100 landlords. You can’t get cigarettes with a fake ID but you can get a gun license with it. However, I have no faith in the ability of the cops to use 2019 technology in general, let alone tumblr. Eat santorum, cops.

I’m posting this to Wiseguy’s blog without their permission, and I hope someone on this site can hear me and preserve my words. I hope you read this entire thing because I now that I’ve looked through your blog I have to tell you that you’re a bit inarticulate and shitty at economic theory. I’ll have to send this post to Shane, Mack, and Albin’s blogs, since they appear to still be active.

To end this, I must speak again of Valentine. He may as well have been an anonymous tumblr blog for all history cares because the affects an action matters far more than the individual who performs it. His history is inconsistent and chaotic, but is love not chaos? Not a Petersonian “"“chaos”“”, but an unrivaled, unparalled and uncanny type of lustful wrath that can take out all of hate’s laziness. You can reject both pure nihilist sloth and desire-driven consumerism. Total freedom should not be seen as an extreme!

There’s a lot to take in; you can’t get it all. Do what you know helps. Do what we know helps.

To decontextualise Richard Dawkins-

“…be satisfied with not understanding the world.”

Sin with pride