My baby daughter got her adorable puffin-print dress absolutely CAKED in mud crawling around the yard and my first thought was "oh no her beautiful dress"
And my second thought was "oh huh it really WOULD be easy to unconsciously steer her away from playing in the dirt. Unlike my son, whose outfits are usually some kind of solid dark easily washed pants plus a shirt that doesn't trail in the dirt like a dress does."
Anyway something something gender roles start getting shoved on kids from literal birth, but with a little time to think about things, YOU TOO can let your children of any gender absolutely destroy their clothes in the dirt pit they're digging in your garden
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the thing about some men is that they want you to remember, at all times, that you are underneath them. that with one word or look or "joke", you will stay beneath them. that even "exceptions" to the rule are not true exceptions - the commonly cited statistic that one in eight men believe they could win against serena williams.
women's gymnastics is often not seen as real gymnastics. whatever the fuck non-euclidian horrors rhythmic gymnasts are capable of, it's often tamped down as being not a sport. some of the most dominant athletes in the world are women. nobody watches women's soccer. despite years of dancing and being built like a fucking brick, men always assume they're faster and stronger than i am. you wouldn't like what happens when they are incorrect. once while drunk at a guy's house i won a held-plank challenge by a solid minute. the party was over after that - he became exceedingly violent.
what i mean is that you can be perfect, and they still think you're ... lacking, somehow. i hope you understand i'm trying to express a neutral statement when i say: taylor swift was the possibly the most patriarchy-palatable, straight-down-the-line woman we could churn out. she is white, conventionally attractive, usually pretty mild in personality. say what you will about her (and you should, she's a billionaire, she can handle it), but a few things seem to be true about her: 1. she can write a damn catchy song, and 2. the eras tour truly was a massive commercial success and was also genuinely an impressive feat of human athleticism and performance.
i don't know if she deserves the title of "woman of the year," i'm not debating that in this post. what i am saying is that she was named Woman of The Year, and then an untalented man got onstage at the golden globes and made fun of her for attending her boyfriend's football games. what i am saying is that this woman altered local economies - and her dating life is still being made into a "harmless" punchline. the camera panned, greedy, over to her downing a full glass of champagne. congratulations taylor! you are woman of the year! but you are a woman. even her.
fuck, man. write better material.
a guy gets onstage at a college graduation and despite the fact like half the crowd is made up of women, he spends a significant proportion of it warning these people - who spent possibly hundreds of thousands of dollars on their education - that they were lied to. that the "real" meaning of femininity is motherhood. that they shouldn't rest on the laurels of that education-they-paid-for but instead throw it away to kneel at a man's heel. imagine that. sweating in your godawful polyester gown (that you also had to pay for!), fresh out of 4 years of pushing yourself ever-harder: and some guy you've never met - who knows nothing about you - he reminds you this "win" is a pyrrhic one at best. you really shouldn't consider yourself that extraordinary. you're still a woman, even after years of study.
god forbid you are not a pretty woman, but if you are pretty, you must be dumb. god forbid you are not ablebodied or white or cis or straight or good at swallowing. you must be beneath a man, or else they are not a man. the equation for masculinity seems to just be: that which is not a woman or womanly (god forbid). anything "feminine" is thereby anathema. to engage in "feminine" things such as therapy, getting a hug from a friend, or crying - it is giving up ones manhood. therefore women need to be put in their place to ensure that masculinity is protected.
this is something i have struggled to explain to terfs - they are not doing the work of feminism, but rather the patriarchy. by asserting that women and men must be (on some secret level) oppositional and in conflict, they also assume that being a woman is akin to being another species. but bigotry does not stem from observational truths or clarity - that is what makes it bigotry. there was nothing in my childhood that made me fundamentally different from my brother. we are treated differently nonetheless. to assert there is some biological drive that enforces my gender role is to assert that women have a gendered role. men do not see women as equal to them not because of biological reality - but instead because the core tenant of the patriarchy is that women aren't full, realized people.
we are told from a very young age to excuse misbehavior as a single man's choice - not all men. it is not all men, just that one guy. all women are gold-digging bitches who belong in the kitchen - but if a man is mean, bigoted, or violent to you, it's just that particular guy, and that means nothing about men-as-a-whole. it is only one guy who got mad when you gently rejected him. it is only one guy who warns her this trophy is heavy, are you sure you can hold it? it is only one guy who smashes her face into the cake. it is only one guy talking into a mic about hating our bodily autonomy.
i have just found that they often wait until the moment we actually seem to be upstaging them. you sit in a meeting where you're presenting your own findings and he says get me a coffee? or you run to the end of the marathon and are about to finish first and he pushes your kids out in front of you. you win the chess game and they make some comment akin to well, you're ugly away. we can be the billionaire and get the dream life and finally fucking do it and yet! still! they have this strange, visceral urge to say well actually, if you think you're so great -
it's not one just one guy. it's one in eight.
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hey got some important news. the affordable connectivity program that helps poor and disabled people afford internet is going to run out of funding by april 2024 if we can't convince congress to renew it
i know emailing and calling politicians often seems like a waste of time, but this is gonna hurt alot of people (myself included) if this program is allowed to disappear. we really need to raise some awareness and get this program the funding that it needs. ACP is a game changer for literally millions of people. this is the only way many homes can even get internet, and in this day and age internet access is pretty much a necessity for almost everything. its gonna be a huge blow to have this vital program taken away from those who depend on it.
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I had to go to a different veterinary clinic this weekend because my usual place is only open weekdays, and the vet was so rough with Grim, for no reason 🥲 like Grim was purring and trying to headbutt this lady and doing cute little meows (despite being so ill that she was gagging and mouth-breathing), and then this lady SCRUFFS HER to get her onto the scale. and continues to use excessive force in pinning her down for the examination. I've been to 12 years worth of vets with Grim, and I've never seen someone act this way. it was so stressful.
on the bright side thought, this vet was obviously component in other areas, because the meds are already working. she's on antibiotics and something to help her airways open (because the throat infection triggered pre-existing asthma), and it's obvious she feels so much more comfortable.
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"You have never faced a death" is possibly the most patently insane thing possible to say to James T. Kirk, who has
survived a famine and genocide at age 13, in which over 4000 people died
survived an attack on the Farragut which killed half the crew, including a captain who he cared about, and which he blamed himself for failing to stop
been forced to kill Gary Mitchell, an old friend of his
lost numerous lovers, including a woman carrying his child, and including some he was at least partially responsible for the deaths of
arrived too late to save the lives of his brother and sister-in-law
lost too many crewmembers to count, and you know he held himself personally responsible for each and every one of those
probably more that I'm forgetting about
and then Spock dies, and Kirk fucking AGREES.
He says, yes, you're right. I haven't faced death. Not like this.
Not like this.
All of those deaths he's lived through, and blamed himself for? You're telling me that none of them mean as much to him as the death of Spock? And you want me to read this as. what. Normal friend things?? When he calls Spock the more noble half of his soul?? And says that Spock's katra is his responsibility, just as much as if it were his own???
And what if I screamed??!???
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