#but the backlash against abuse resources is still there

[sophieinwonderland]

Speaking of how people refuse to engage with "traumagenic" as an umbrella term, it repeatedly baffles me whenever I try to start conversations on the ways different traumas can affect a system, or just coin terms for specific traumagenic origins because our system finds them useful, and I'll get pushback from both pro-endos and anti-endos alike. Like, excuse me? I'm trying to have a productive discussion on trauma and healing here. Why are you so afraid to acknowledge that trauma can be diverse and more specific resources may be needed sometimes? My headmates who came from the trauma of a lack of accomodations for our disabilities have a very different relationship with our plurality and trauma than my headmates who came from not being believed about our pain or my headmates who came from being bullied or my headmates who came from financial stress. All of it is trauma, but it's not all the same, and each of us needs different things. Different resources, different methods of recovery, different words for what we went through. And it's a core part of our recovery that we need to balance all these different traumas and origins; if we just went about some sort of "one size fits all" treatment (which it feels like people expect us to go through), we'd end up in a much worse situation than if we carefully unraveled each trauma as its own thing.

I think it has to do with all the expectations around trauma that can be seen in DID spaces, especially when it comes to what trauma can cause a system to form. There's still ideas floating around over there that only specific physical and sexual abuse is "bad enough" to cause DID, and there are lots of posts that act as though everyone with DID went through the same exact traumas, eg. I remember seeing a fair amount of "this is what DID is really like" memes that include sexual abuse as if everyone with DID has suffered from it. And because it's expected that we all went through the same things and have the same process of recovery, well, there's no need to elaborate any more on our origins, right? Just say "traumagenic" and everyone has a specific picture in their mind of what you went through. It never occurs to them that being more specific might be necessary or at least helpful (even when they claim that just about anything can be trauma – which, yeah, maybe just about anything could be, but if that's so, why are you against people coining terms to find others who have gone through their niche traumas, so they can trade stories and tips on how to get better?). Add that to the claim that other forms of trauma or abuse aren't "bad enough" to cause DID, and, well... Any effect other traumas may have on a system, even if they're not considered part of that system's origin, get brushed off to the side or only vaguely acknowledged. It's better than how it used to be, but I still see this subtle attitude here and there.

I feel like I'm rambling at this point but as one specific example, we have headmates who specifically help us with eating enough, because our trauma involves food issues and a possible eating disorder. Despite these headmates likely qualifying as traumagenic or at least caregivers to traumagenic headmates, there's not much room for them in the traumagenic community, and I've seen lots of backlash for specific terms for them because... idk, I guess some people don't want to acknowledge that eating disorders or general food issues can be traumatic enough to cause systems or new headmates. Or they think any mention of such things, even in spaces specifically meant to discuss trauma, means we're "glorifying" the shit we went/go through. It's frustrating. I just want tips from other systems on how to help these kids eat more when our amnesia means I don't know why we dissociate at family dinners or what foods are safe to eat. Calling ourselves just "traumagenic" isn't going to connect us with the systems who can help with that (and before anyone says anything, neither is just going into spaces for food issues – most of the people there are singlets who don't have any idea what to do about our situation!).

.

[fullhalalalchemist]

smut and nsfw works can be very deranged sometimes but how is it fair to compare it to the actual harm of porn? even if there was absolutely 0 effect on the people watching it(such as increased likelyhood of sexual aggression, decreased empathy for rape victims, irreversible effects on the brain etc) the actors in porn videos would still experience what they experience. you can fantasize and preach till your mouth goes dry about the self-sufficient empowered sex workers who choose their own work, but it won't make the truth of millions of trafficked male and female children fueling the industry disappear. the high rates of suicide, addictions to get through the scenes, physical harm thats basically part of the job description? there is so many porn stars that have come out with their stories of what they experienced on set, yes even the successfull ones that went into the industry willingly. their abuse is not comparable to words on paper.

not the mention "my christian parents are against it so i must support it" is a very weak argument. its cringe shortsighted reactionary bullshit.

1) if there is increased likelyhood of sexual aggression, decreased empathy for rape victims, irreversible effects on the brain then how come millenials and gen z, which grew up on these, have a better understanding of consent, more egalitarian views on gender and sex, there's less teen pregnancy and less sex being had overall by the younger crowd even pre-pandemic. secondly, WHO is having an increased likelihood of sexual aggression? WHO has a decreased empathy for rape victims? because i'm sure you can point to america's flawless and amazing attitudes towards women and rape victims historically (sarcasm, in case you're too stupid to realize). studies show that men who access sex work have more egalitarian and feminist attitudes than those with antisex and antiporn sentiment

perhaps youre talking about the cis men who already are prone to abuse women and are using things like 'rough sex' and 'bdsm' as an excuse, and its more visible now? because that takes a lot of nuance to talk about and i agree with you there that this IS an issue, but these men would have found ways to do that anyway. perhaps the issue is not the porn itself but the society that encourages violence in an era where increased societal collapse is happening all around us? where the trend of backlash against women has been happening for over a decade and really isn't tied to porn/sex at all but more towards increasing feminist attitudes toward work and gender roles going mainstream?

2) so you're ignoring sex workers yet again, got it. because there's also a lot of sex workers who came out and said that they love their work, they love being a sex worker. and in either case, these are the same people who have been criminalized and brutalized by police globally, the main source of their abuse. in fact YOU can fantasize and preach til YOUR mouth goes dry about how its the worst industry ever while ignoring the millions of queer, disabled, women, and poc who are in this line of work and love it.

3) and are these millions of traffiked children in the room with us now? you think that if there were millions of traffiked kids, they'd show up in mainstream porn more, right? except they dont. 100 members of congress asked the DOJ to investigate OnlyFans bc of 80 possible instances of CSAM in the same time that facebooks 20 million cases went ignored by literally everyone. and who's the site thats getting punished? pornhub and other porn sites which have a well-documented effort of putting time, resources, and moderation of getting rid of this content that some users upload. endtraffikinghub was a fucking psyop by far-right christian orgs posing as 'anti-traffiking' orgs, oh my god. where the hell are you getting these numbers anyway? because CSAM is NOT porn and NOT the porn industry and its psychotic to equate them.

4) high rates of suicides, addictions to get through scenes. can you link any studies? and again, do you TALK to sex workers or do you just rehash claims made by these antiporn/"antitraffiking" "activists" who are almost always far-right christians in disguise (hello look at NCOSE, formerly known as morality in media) rather than the actual people who do the work? because i can point to you several thousands of people who show up to their non-porn non-sex work jobs faded as hell and also have suicidal tendnencies from being in those industries. the issue is LABOR & CAPITALISM, not sex and not porn.

5) sure, there is always cause for abuse of workers. but again that is a labor issue, because we live in a capitalist society and across the board there are workers being abused. sexual harrassment and assault is not unique to porn, and you're naive to think that lmao. if you truly gaf about getting rid of the industry you'd push for what sex workers are calling for, decriminalization. there are hundreds of sex worker unions who talk about the issues they face, and most of it is decriminalization. in india a union of 60k people recently won a big court case on this. its a labor issue if anything. the main source of abuse is extensive criminalization and banking discrimination which pushes people into poverty and homelessness as they're forced to do more irl work and come across the police who have been killing and raping sex workers this entire time.

6) and no, it's not a weak argument when we live in an increasingly christofascist state and world. its' actually a very very good argument for the suppression of sex and sex workers. because these same antiporn "activists" have co-opted feminist language and you're all falling for it and once again ignoring sex workers

and lets just clarify. people say "porn industry" and are referring to the sites like pornhub. the "industry" is where the workers are. there is no like, shadow overrulling company making all the porn. there are a bunch of filming companies who sex workers HAVE spoken out against and a bunch that they love to work for instead. there are millions of people who work on their own terms, from their own sites too. my PERSONAL opinion that has been motivated by listening to sex workers and reading both sociology and psychological research has been that i will always always always support the worker first before the industry. there are a lot of issues, that is true! but it's mainly a labor issue and sex workers have BEEN on the frontlines of negotiating for better working conditions. to say otherwise would be foolish and would show you simply dont pay attention. why do you think many of them go to use sites like onlyfans now over pornhub?

[traumasurvivorshelpingsurvivors]

Tw domestic violence

All of this sounds like a racist cliche, I try to be as vague as possible, to not strengthen this feeling, but it still does and I am sorry.

I don't want too much help from you, I rather need to get this off my chest.

I live with my mom in a house with several apartments and a new tenant moved into the apartment above ours. We don't know very much about him, he's in his 40s, has a great career and either he or his ancestors are from abroad. Some weeks after he moved in, he went back into his/his ancestors home country for 2 weeks, married and came back with his wife. She's in her early 20s. She doesn't speak our language (though she's learning it atm) and only very little English. Because of that, we (as, the house community who does meet for picnics etc) don't know her and don't see her very much. My mom talked to her a few times (she adores my moms dog) and said, she's a very nice woman (and my mom is racist, especially against that womans home country, so that means something).

For an uncommon long period of time, we heard noises we thought were "moving in" noises (though I doubt it in hindsight). But one day, we heard her screaming too. Our walls are very thick and it isn't always clear what is loud talking/arguing, and what's yelling. But she yelled, for several minutes, and she yelled "help" in my native language. Accompanied by the kind of noise you'd expect, given my tw and the context.

I asked my mom, what to do (since she's abusive towards me and I am not allowed to do anything without her ok) and she was undecided, until the noise stopped. I have heard that woman several times since (including this evening and yesterday) but again, I can't tell if she's arguing or yelling. It has never been nearly as bad as that one afternoon. But I don't feel good about it.

My issue is, that I have severe social anxiety and don't leave the house. Simply going upstairs and talking to her, introducing myself, is absolutely impossible.

And I feel bad about this whole situation. I feel like I should do something (given the language barrier, idk if she could even seek for help, if she decided to) but I don't know, what to do, that's not limited by my mom or my mental health. And on the other hand, I am unsure if I should do anything. Nobody asked me for and maybe she doesn't even want help. Is it my business before someone asks for my help?

Anyhow, I feel guilty for not helping.

Hi anon,

I'm so sorry about what you've been experiencing. That sounds incredibly distressing to witness.

If you hear someone yelling for help or in distress, you could consider calling the police or another emergency service if you feel comfortable doing so. They can investigate and ensure that the woman is safe. If you don't feel comfortable contacting the police, you could consider reaching out to a local organization or support group that works with victims of abuse. They may have more information and resources to assist you and the woman in question.

If you're not sure whether the woman is in danger, you could still try to reach out and offer your support. Perhaps you could write a note or leave a small gift on her doorstep, expressing your concern and offering help if needed. This may be less intimidating than speaking to her face-to-face, but this could result in backlash towards the victim if the abuser discovers the note or gift.

Remember that you are not responsible for someone else's problems, and it's important to prioritize your own safety and well-being. If you're feeling overwhelmed or unsure, it may be helpful to talk to a therapist or a trusted friend or family member. They can provide additional support and guidance.

Ultimately, please remember that you are not to blame for not knowing what to do. It's natural to feel guilty, but it's important to recognize that you're doing the best you can with the resources and information you have available.

If anyone has any comments or suggestions, feel free to add on. Otherwise, I hope I could help. Please let us know if you need anything.

-Bun

[furiousgoldfish]

Personal post; on trauma, measures to deal with osdd, and this blog

I'm at a weird place right now where sometimes, I can be functional for a little while, and then sometimes not, and I've learned that for my specific condition, it simply takes a lot of maintenance and constant actions I have to do in order to stay functional. This kills my vibe because I don't like routines, I don't like having constant chores to do, I always wanted to live impulsively and do things as they come to mind. I've been resistant to the idea that I have to maintain my mental health constantly, but at this point I have to admit that doing the maintenance and being functional is far far preferable to not doing it, and then falling out of function, and being in a lousy shape in bed in chronic pain and exhaustion.

Stuff I need to do isn't the regular self care, it's dictated by alters and their wants. It seems that as a kid, I had to be separated and dissociated from any human need, so most of the time I will just want for nothing and feel zero desires. My alters are the ones holding all of my needs and wants, and for a long time, I've been just shutting them down, because I didn't think I could fulfill any, I didn't think it makes sense fulfilling it, I didn't believe it would make me happy, and I didn't think I should indulge too far with alters anyway because of some bad advice I read on the internet (haven't we all).

Indulging with my protective alter led me to take care of my appearance a little more and to communicate with people in ways that makes sure I get something out of it, which to me personally sounds utterly evil, but they're convincing me it's normal to have both-sided gain in an interaction. Indulging with my child alter has led to me going to parks more, sitting on swings, eating more candy (so much candy), being randomly silly and just doing ridiculous cringy stuff that I personally don't see a point in doing, but if I do it, my child alter doesn't cause me to fall into depression, and that is a very worthy goal to pursue.

Sometimes, however, maintenance doesn't help either, and I'm currently in that state, stuck in the bed, unable to go out, or do chores, take care of myself or my alters, and I've been simmering in guilt for days, only to finally accept it now. I'll be able to move, when I'm able to move, and no amount of shame will help me get there sooner. I didn't fail and cause this, I'm ill and that's not my fault. If all I can do is stay in bed, then it's my best, and I have to accept that.

I don't know if I've been leaving an impression of a person who is doing well or is well put together, if I'm honest, a lot of this blog was written while I was just done having flashbacks, or trauma episodes. Sometimes I would write it still crying or engulfed by rage, and then after a few days when I would gather my thoughts better, I would re-write it or write it again. I would also write every time I had a realization, or when I would realize a certain problem came from a certain type of abuse. Some posts were created after research, some when I realized some other things weren't obvious to everyone. Sometimes people would talk to me and I would realize where exactly they needed reassurance or additional info, and I'd write about that. And most often, I would just write it to myself. I don't get anyone saying these things to me, and when I write them out to myself, I feel comforted. I feel better, if I'm kind to myself. And then if other people agree, I feel as if they've comforted me too, just by saying 'yeah, that's correct!' or 'I needed to hear this too'.

I remember some 10 years in the past, I was just coming down with ptsd, and I didn’t know what it was, it was a spiral of panic to discover that nobody really knew anything about it. In the place where I live, it's not recognized as a real disorder unless you've participated in a war. I talked to several psychologists, psychiatrists, and a wide variety of people to see what they thought, and nobody recognized it or could tell me what was wrong with me. If I mentioned I suspected it was ptsd, I would be shut down immediately, by every single person. I read every book and every article I could find, rummaged thru any blog and social media, talked to other people who struggled with abuse and still I learned obscenely little. Or, the things I've learned were already obvious to me, and a lot of information was plain wrong, unhelpful, biased against victims, silencing, explaining away, blaming, shaming, teaching how suppress or ignore symptoms, teaching how to forcefully push the emotions back in, how to endure more, how to pretend to be normal. I resented it. I didn't want to repress or act normal, I wanted to explode and feel everything at once, even if it killed me. Soon I was to realize that, it would, in fact, kill me if I continued to try to do that. I learned very slowly that I have to feel only in small waves and episodes, if I want my life to be livable in any way.

I went on to study everything about child abuse and ptsd that was possible to find for 5 years. I was disturbed by the lack of resources, and kept gathering what I knew, kept exploring how it worked on myself, and I felt guilty for every piece of knowledge I harbored, because I knew it should be shared. Everyone should know it, everyone should have resources, and know that abuse effects us in this way, that this is what happens. Speaking to people in private had no results, because this isn't the stuff people want to hear, it's stuff they have to discover. Pushing this on people has only bad results. Nobody wants another person to explain their life to them. It's rude, presumptive and ineffective.

When I started writing, I was relieved I could finally put out what I knew should be available, but I was also cautious and afraid, because at that point I knew that I was taking a stand against something powerful. I expected to be shut down immediately, and by a miracle, I wasn't. Very few people attacked me and fought against my information (for instance, insisting children need to be hit, trauma shouldn't be talked about, traumatized people need to just suck it and stop being the way they are), and I could easily see their motivation, shutting down victims, protecting abusers. So I could easily block them and know that this is not an opponent to argue against, I just needed to convince the victims that they're right.

It took a long time, way longer than I expected, to get to the serious backlash, and at that point I wasn't surprised. In the meantime, so many other trauma-resource blogs popped up, I felt that even if I am taken down, the change has been made. I don't think I've contributed much, the survivors themselves started figuring it out, just like I did, and stood against what was hurting them. They've changed the public mindset, shared their knowledge, and helped others escape from abuse. I couldn't be more happy or grateful for it. Predictably, the backlash came for all of us, and it surprised me that at this point, we all were a threat enough for abusers to actually organize and attack us as a group. I haven't seen that before, though abusers do very much validate each other and support each other's ways whenever interacting, they usually rarely go for group effort to subdue victims, and I only hope that we can do the same, organize and stand our ground as a community.

I felt isolated when when I was first targeted; and there was the initial shock at the hatred and contempt that was shown to me, twisting my words back to me and assuming the worst intentions. When it happens, at first you can't react calmly, you feel like it's deserved, you doubt yourself. I questioned if I did write something harmful, and even if it was a long time ago, was it irresponsible and harming someone? Do I deserve people to unconditionally despise and hate me for my wrongdoings? But in the end, I realized it mattered very little what I wrote. It would have been misrepresented, twisted and used against me anyway. Anything can be taken out of context and presented as evidence of an 'evil monster' if someone tries hard enough – and of course these people tried very hard.

These people didn't want an apology or admission of guilt, which they could have easily gotten from someone as easy to guilt as me – they wanted a complete shut down, deletion of all of my content, my blog erased. I knew that wasn't right. Thousands of messages thanking me for the content, saying how it helped them feel less horrible, or even escape, that wasn't fake. If I was wrong once, it didn't mean everything I ever did needed to be destroyed. The fight isn't against me personally. It was just about suppressing information about abuse, and protecting abusers.

I later found out that all of the blogs that were most heavily affected by trauma were targeted – people struggling with ptsd, cptsd, did, osdd, all of those hit by the extreme abuse were now scapegoated and written about in modern-type language as 'bigots and ableists', like it made any kind of sense that people struggling the worst and sharing advice, comfort and resources, would be someone who needs to be kicked out of the community. The words 'violent' were thrown into every accusation, as if the action of spreading support and information to victims of abuse could be any form of violence. Abuse of language to accuse victims of what they will find the most triggering – violence.

Due to the harassment and threats, for a while, writing this blog became a problem for my mental health. My protective alter told me to back out of it, and some of my friends, horrified when I told them whats up, told me to give it up. But I couldn't do it. The messages of people telling me how my work helped them, are the only thing that kept me going thru my ptsd. Often in the past, I was doing very little except for writing this blog, and people coming to tell me that it helped, were the only proof that I wasn't worthless, proof it was good that I was still alive. It was even comforting me to read my own blog sometimes, when the self doubt kicked in.

Abusers then decided then to attack anyone who dares to interact, and of course, by using the modern language of anonymous message saying 'block this person, they're actually the big bad in the world, you're evil for sharing this!'. And it was always anonymous, because they always had something to hide. I thought it would be very obvious what they're doing, because harassing victims is so obviously evil, but I realize now it would work, because the targets of it are the children, mostly abused children, that the abusers are intimidating and very loudly insisting do as they say. Of course it would work on children. Of course the most loud and scary person telling them to distance themselves from abuse resources because the writer is secretly evil, will sound normal and legit, and it will be something they're compelled to obey. This again, prompted me to consider if what I'm doing is helping, because now there's kids being harassed over it, people getting intimidated and scared from the backlash directed at not me, but them. But then we'll be going back to the past. To the place where resources don't exist. That's exactly what the abusers want.

And I considered doing so many things to migitate the damage, to re-direct it back to myself, to try to defend myself – and I couldn't do it. Because it's already been enough of arguing. Someone getting convinced on a single user twice over whether they're good or bad, is just extra stress. It doesn't hurt me the slightest if there are many people considering me to be evil or malicious. I just need to make sure that the resources are still available. It's what's being fought against, and what I'm trying to protect. Even if my contribution is just a small one, if it helps someone, it's something worth protecting. And I love writing this blog. I'm surprised at how much I still have to say, almost every single day. Abuse is so prevalent and integrated in this world, and the effects are so overwhelming and lasting, that there's no end to writing about it.

[a-tale-of-legends]

Okay idea:

Team skull being perceived as the evil team and the aether foundation actually being the evil team but it's for a different reason.

The Aether Foundation is feared among Alola. Not because of any cruel acts( however they may go unnoticed), but because of the sheer presence the Aether Foundation have. They have quickly built an entire island for themselves, as well as placing different facilities around Alola. They have eyes everywhere and it's been that way for a while. Generally, the Alolan people fear/ feel the pressure of the Aether Foundation, specifically things are mixed. There some that are are angered by them and are hoping that the Tapu's just smite them already. There are some that are completely neutral towards them. Some thing that they are good for Alola, giving them resources they didn't have before. And some, mostly elderly folk, who knows there's a problem and actively ignore it. Both in fear of what would happen if they did intervene, and also in having the mentality of " if we don't bother them, they don't bother us"..... despite the fact that said foundation is clearly taking more recourses than giving. It's a problem that has been plaguing Alola and they all come to a point of just accepting it and rolling with the punches. But for some people, that shouldn't be the case.

Enter Team Skull, the only people ballsy enough to actively go against the Aether Foundation. This could cause a change in events, as Guzma wouldn't necessarily be working with Lusamine. Maybe, idk, his big weakness is wanting acknowledgement for his strength, so who knows. In this story events, the people of Alola don't dislike Team Skull because they are just rowdy and annoying ( okay maybe a little) but because they are actively disturbing the "peace" between the Alolan people and The Aether Foundation. Especially the elderly people, who some ended up just accepting their circumstances and push for others to do them same.

This idea would also affect the characters. Hau would be affected and give him more reason to be more relaxed and happy go lucky, just to distract everyone ( and himself) from their situation. But that doesn't mean he isn't bothered by it, but his grandfather doesn't seem so bothered, nor do any other adults, so he just forces himself not to be bothered as well. It doesn't work.

Lillie and Gladion are interesting in that their mom is the one running the whole thing. I feel like them rubbing away is just a huge wake up call to how Alola is currently being treated. Like they very well know how cruel Lusamine is, given her abuse, but they never really thought about how she affected everyone else. This isn't to undermine their abuse!!!! That whole plotline is still a thing that will be addressed, and this is not for either Lillie or Gladion to go " man, I guess I got off lucky". No. Absolutely not. This is mostly to incorporate Alola's struggles more into the main game that just the Aether Family plot. Gladion joining Team Skull would also makes sense, as he is now actively going against his mother, instead of ending up joining a team that joined forces with the aether foundation.

Kukui building the pokemon league makes even more sense since it would be his way of fighting back. Subtly of course. If Alola has something to rely on that isn't just tourism and the Aether foundation for money and resources, they probably won't be as afraid ( tbh, I'm not sure if fear and afraid are the correct terms to use her, but I can't think of anything else) when it comes to the Aether Foundation. It still has it flaws and backlash, of course, but it's an Alola Original.

The protagonist is a bit harder, but the one idea I have is it going back to their mom. Maybe she ends up working for the Aether Foundation since she needs a job? Thus making the protagonist involved by default? Idk, but the protag is still there.

I also want to make it clear that the problems from the Aether foundation is more about how it's run and not every single person in the foundation. Like I believe they're done workers who genuinely want to help Alola! Some may be Alolan themselves, and want to see if they can change things from the inside. But with Lusamine and Faba at the top seats, it's very hard to do so. The end goal is for the Aether foundation to have less power than the already have. They can still exist and help Alola without having such power, you know?

Anyway, that's my idea. I hope you guys liked it!

[ukrfeminism]

2 minute read

Liz Truss’s new government has been accused of “erasing women from the equalities agenda” after the word ‘women’ was removed from a ministerial role - and the job given to a man. 

Nadhim Zahawi, Chancellor from July until September, was appointed Equalities Minister on Tuesday as part of the new prime minister’s revamped cabinet.

The role was previously known as the Women and Equalities Minister, but the word has been quietly dropped from the title, leading to fears of a ‘downgrade’ in importance.

Kate Osborne, a Labour MP who sits on the Women and Equalities Committee, said: “At present, Nadhim Zahawi is the head of the equalities ministry, even if they appoint a women’s minister, they will be more junior than him. 

“They have restructured the government department and at best downgraded the importance of women’s equalities.”

The MP for Jarrow chaired Wednesday’s session of the Women and Equalities Select Committee – which focuses on attitudes toward women and girls in educational settings. 

“It may be the last committee with this name as the new prime minister has appointed a Minister for Equalities – dropping women from the portfolio,” she said. 

“Women still face huge issues with sexism and misogyny - not just today's discussion on attitudes to women and girls, but the gender pay gap, gender health inequalities, maternity pay, menopause at work, violence against women, a huge drop in prosecutions for domestic abuse and many more inequalities that need to be addressed.”

She stated “women’s rights and equalities must remain at the forefront of the work we do” – adding: “We cannot allow this government to erase women from the equalities agenda.”

The name of the role has changed six times since it was introduced by Tony Blair in 1997. 

It was initially Minister for Women and then Minister for Women and Equality in 2007, followed by Minister for Women and Equalities in 2010. 

In April 2014 it was divided into two roles Minister for Women, with Nicky Morgan in the post, and a second role of Minister for Equalities, filled by Sajid Javid. 

Just three months later it was merged back into one role, Minister for Women and Equalities, and stayed with that title until now. 

Mandu Reid, leader of the Women's Equality Party, condemned the appointment of Mr Zahawi as she warned the “decision to remove women from the equalities brief is a clear indication of how Liz Truss will prioritise women - which is not at all.”

She said: “Although I firmly believe that women's equality is something that must be at the core of all government work - not just siloed in a portfolio role - the fact remains that there is now no minister responsible for protecting and promoting the rights of women across every aspect of government, and that is very troubling.”

Ms Mandu warned the cost of living crisis is “gendered” as she hit out at “staggering childcare costs, rising rates of violence against women and increasing poverty, which disproportionately impacts women” but argued “the government has completely failed to provide gendered solutions.”

“Women simply aren't a priority, and I urge the new prime minister to prove me wrong,” she added. 

Jemima Olchawski, chief executive of Fawcett Society, the UK’s leading gender equality charity, said: "Following the announcement of Truss's new cabinet, it's concerning that she's appointed a Minister for Equalities instead of the previous role of Minister for Women and Equalities. 

“We have a long way to go before this government really addresses deep-seated gender inequalities that harm and hold back women. Now not is not the time to be de-prioritising our needs.”

Vivienne Hayes, chief executive of the Women’s Resource Centre, the leading national umbrella organisation for the women’s sector in the UK, said the new appointment “signals to women that our rights and protection are not a priority and given we are over half the population, this is dismal and shocking.”

“Because they have removed the title of women in the role and put a man suggests very strongly women’s needs are not going to be considered,” Ms Hayes said. “Women are always an afterthought for the Tories. Erasing the role for women in cabinet confirms it.”

It comes after The Independent recently reported women have been left “brutally exposed” to the cost of living crisis as they were disproportionately affected by surging poverty levels in the last decade.

Researchers said there are now more than 7.5 million women living in relative poverty up and down the UK – almost a quarter of all women living in the country. 

The prime minister’s spokesperson indicated that there were no plans to appoint a separate minister for women, and that Mr Zahawi would retain responsibility for that area of policy.

Asked if there would be a minister for women, the spokesperson said: “The equalities brief hasn’t changed. You have heard the prime minister on the campaign trail talking about her focus on women’s rights and her desire to create a national domestic abuse register.

“The title has been changed slightly. I believe that it is the actions which the govnerment takes on which it will be judged, rather than the job titles of individuals. The policy areas for which they have responsibility haven’t changed.”

Nadhim Zahawi, Chancellor from July until September, was appointed Equalities Minister on Tuesday as part of the new prime minister’s revamped cabinet.

The role was previously known as the Women and Equalities Minister, but the word has been quietly dropped from the title, leading to fears of a ‘downgrade’ in importance. 

Kate Osborne, a Labour MP who sits on the Women and Equalities Committee, said: “At present, Nadhim Zahawi is the head of the equalities ministry, even if they appoint a women’s minister, they will be more junior than him. 

“They have restructured the government department and at best downgraded the importance of women’s equalities.”

The MP for Jarrow chaired Wednesday’s session of the Women and Equalities Select Committee – which focuses on attitudes toward women and girls in educational settings. 

“It may be the last committee with this name as the new prime minister has appointed a Minister for Equalities – dropping women from the portfolio,” she said. 

“Women still face huge issues with sexism and misogyny - not just today's discussion on attitudes to women and girls, but the gender pay gap, gender health inequalities, maternity pay, menopause at work, violence against women, a huge drop in prosecutions for domestic abuse and many more inequalities that need to be addressed.”

She stated “women’s rights and equalities must remain at the forefront of the work we do” – adding: “We cannot allow this government to erase women from the equalities agenda.”

The name of the role has changed six times since it was introduced by Tony Blair in 1997. 

It was initially Minister for Women and then Minister for Women and Equality in 2007, followed by Minister for Women and Equalities in 2010. 

In April 2014 it was divided into two roles Minister for Women, with Nicky Morgan in the post, and a second role of Minister for Equalities, filled by Sajid Javid. 

Just three months later it was merged back into one role, Minister for Women and Equalities, and stayed with that title until now. 

Mandu Reid, leader of the Women's Equality Party, condemned the appointment of Mr Zahawi as she warned the “decision to remove women from the equalities brief is a clear indication of how Liz Truss will prioritise women - which is not at all.”

She said: “Although I firmly believe that women's equality is something that must be at the core of all government work - not just siloed in a portfolio role - the fact remains that there is now no minister responsible for protecting and promoting the rights of women across every aspect of government, and that is very troubling.”

Ms Mandu warned the cost of living crisis is “gendered” as she hit out at “staggering childcare costs, rising rates of violence against women and increasing poverty, which disproportionately impacts women” but argued “the government has completely failed to provide gendered solutions.”

“Women simply aren't a priority, and I urge the new prime minister to prove me wrong,” she added. 

Jemima Olchawski, chief executive of Fawcett Society, the UK’s leading gender equality charity, said: "Following the announcement of Truss's new cabinet, it's concerning that she's appointed a Minister for Equalities instead of the previous role of Minister for Women and Equalities. 

“We have a long way to go before this government really addresses deep-seated gender inequalities that harm and hold back women. Now not is not the time to be de-prioritising our needs.”

Vivienne Hayes, chief executive of the Women’s Resource Centre, the leading national umbrella organisation for the women’s sector in the UK, said the new appointment “signals to women that our rights and protection are not a priority and given we are over half the population, this is dismal and shocking.”

“Because they have removed the title of women in the role and put a man suggests very strongly women’s needs are not going to be considered,” Ms Hayes said. “Women are always an afterthought for the Tories. Erasing the role for women in cabinet confirms it.”

It comes after The Independent recently reported women have been left “brutally exposed” to the cost of living crisis as they were disproportionately affected by surging poverty levels in the last decade.

Researchers said there are now more than 7.5 million women living in relative poverty up and down the UK – almost a quarter of all women living in the country. 

The prime minister’s spokesperson indicated that there were no plans to appoint a separate minister for women, and that Mr Zahawi would retain responsibility for that area of policy.

Asked if there would be a minister for women, the spokesperson said: “The equalities brief hasn’t changed. You have heard the prime minister on the campaign trail talking about her focus on women’s rights and her desire to create a national domestic abuse register.

“The title has been changed slightly. I believe that it is the actions which the govnerment takes on which it will be judged, rather than the job titles of individuals. The policy areas for which they have responsibility haven’t changed.”

[pink-n-spooky]

Teen girls aren’t allowed to enjoy anything

and here’s my long ass essay about it :)

In youth pop culture, as well as pop culture in general, it’s generally a given that music movies, books, clothing, and other things that gain popularity will eventually fall out of style. On face level, this isn’t always a bad thing, but rather more of a function of society: when something is new, many people are interested, and as time passes, that number dwindles. Backlash and criticism is also a normal function of society, which can be very beneficial when done in good faith and with constructive purpose.

However, it’s quite notable that an overwhelming amount of criticism falls on things that generally have a large fan-following of teenage girls. This can cause them to feel embarrassed by wat they’re interested, or feel that being made fun of is inevitable.

In reality, though, things gain traction for a reason, and things widely loved by teenage girls aren’t often given the same analysis and consideration other things in pop culture are given.

While there is certainly media that isn’t beneficial and could negatively affect young girls, the things they like often go ridiculed by society due to a lack of consideration and deep analysis, as well as the constant sexist want of society to bring down young girls.

Older people in general have been known to blow off things popular in youth culture, which can sometimes be attributed to just not knowing or caring about it. On the more intense side, some are infuriated by it—and not always without reason. But when it comes to things that are popularized by teen girls, a deep and proper analysis is often not given. Instead, they focus on the surface-level negatives.

The Hunger Games is a clear example of this. The series, which revolves around a teen girl forced into a game where she has to murder other kids, is widely condemned as being far too violent and a potential threat to the innocence of young girls.

On the first look, it’s clear that this widespread opinion doesn’t stem from nothing; the series is violent, and mainly young girls read it. However, if one goes even a bit beyond the surface level of the series instead of being initially outraged, it actually shows a complex society and story of revolution with themes of corrupt media and propaganda, separation of class by wealth, and way both sides of a political argument or war can be corrupt.

Take the 12 Districts in the series: the Capital is at the top with the most wealth and ability to abuse, and lowest number Districts are under the illusion that they’re the same. Author Suzanne Collins develops this complex idea in her story by showing that while people in the Districts have different levels of wealth and resources, in the end, they’re all still forced to put their children to death.

In the grand scheme of things, they’re all just as powerless against those at the top. It reflects the nuances of Capitalistic societies and class divisions in a thoughtful way. This can actually really benefit girls, especially since the protagonist is someone they can see themselves as.

A much more widespread example of the ridicule young girls endure for the things they like is fashion. Overall, fashion for girls has progressed in a way that over time has become more diverse and accepting. It’s not uncommon to see girls in long jeans and sweaters, but it it’s also not uncommon to see them in more revealing clothes like crop-tops.

The way girls dress is taken issue with by many adults and even school systems, shown by dress codes that often ban shirts—even if they only reveal a girl’s shoulders. These girls are often told they’re being too provocative or dressing for boys, which strips them of their individuality and is certainly not the case. Many girls dress this way because they want to.

Furthermore, the diverse and growing willingness to be experimental with what they wear shows something wildly different than the harmful predetermination: reclamation of their bodies. Throughout history, girls have been shamed this same way—often more intensely. So, by defying these criticisms, teen girls are showing they feel more free and more confident in what they look like and are perceived as, which is something everyone should want for them.

When things like this are torn down by others, it can affect the girls immense negative ways and cause them to lose confidence. When the benefits are ignored by society, this is often what happens. The positives of more experimental and unique media and styles that interest young girls are at best ignored and at worst ridiculed when not given proper analysis and understanding.

While some criticisms of youth girl pop culture can be attributed to ignorance and lack of poper analysis, it would be even more ignorant to ignore the root of these issues: sexism.

When comparing the things young boys take interest in with what girls of the same age do, one clearly causes more outrage than the other. This can be seen by the blind outrage thrown at things like youth romance novels.

When the young adult romance book Twilight came out, real criticisms of the story were often drowned out by people making fun of its fans, which was majorly young girls. They were ridiculed by people often much older for liking something perceived as stupid. This can discourage girls from allowing themselves to enjoy such things, which is harmful because books like these often give girls hope and bring just pure happiness to them, which is immensely important as they grow up.

Furthermore, young girls are often criticized for liking the same things boys do to a much further extent. Video games, which are often violent, are traditionally played by boys. While these games draw a lot of criticism for aspects of violence and shooting, it has nothing to do with the fact that the audience is boys.

Girls, however, are often personally disparaged from playing such games because they’re too “masculine” and just not made for them. This discourages young girls from finding out what they enjoy and forces them to limit what they take part in.

In the end, even with the hate they often undergo, young girls haven’t stopped boldly and unapologetically enjoying what they love, but it is through their perseverance that they’re able to do so.

Final note: If we’re being honest, we all have a bit of internalized sexism and judge without thinking about potential effects on others. Sexism won’t cease to exist easily, but if we only take the time to consider our motives—even subconscious ones—we can help stifle our biases and most importantly, create a healthy environment where girls can express themselves.

TL;DR

Society loves to put girls down and make fun of everything they like, which stems from sexism and lack of analysis. In reality, there’s often real, important purpose to the things they enjoy. I also definitely used The Hunger Games and Twilight as examples :)

p.s. i am also in love w katniss<3

[masterthespianduchovny]

I’m going to be honest before I get to the Sam/Rebecca subplot: if they drop plots threads indicating that this continue into the next season and uplift this pairing, I’m out.

This storyline is gross and I can see why some people quit the show when the revealed happened.

When I say I’m repulsed by age gap relationships of this nature, this isn’t a shipping thing or a race thing. This is a moral and ethical thing. Because it’s not just an age gap, it’s also that Rebecca is Sam’s boss. I legitimately don’t see how people can overlook this and ship how “cute” this is. I’m not judging anyone, it just genuinely doesn’t make sense to me.

And for people who think I’m a hypocrite, Ted/Rebecca is not the same. Sam and Rebecca is like a principal dating a student. If you want to age Sam up, because people love to accuse others of infantilizing Sam, it’s like the president of a college dating a student. In both cases, there would be backlash, and have been, to these types of relationships.

Which would make Ted’s position that of a teacher/professor or someone higher. In most cases, there aren’t objections, however, both parties have to be transparent about their relationship and careful about how and if that influences their professional relationship with each other and others.

Last week, I mentioned a friend of mine who was 18 and dated someone who was 28. Both are white for reference. When I found out their ages and respective positions, I became concerned and doubly concerned.

Oh, they had chemistry and he made her so happy, but he was also controlling as fuck and emotionally abusive. During the duration of their relationship, he became her boss and would monitor her interactions via cameras in the back office. She was stressed out as fuck and would go to the bathroom to cry. You know, where cameras weren’t and where he couldn’t enter.

And it was a secret relationship because he could get in trouble. I didn’t say anything because she was with her boyfriend before she knew me. Me telling someone could’ve gotten him in trouble or fired, but that wouldn’t have ended the relationship. It would’ve made her end our friendship and cling closer to him. Instead, after I quit for other reasons, I sporadically checked on her to see how she was doing and give her advice and resources.

As far as the actual episode itself goes, I struggled to enjoy it due to the Sam/Rebecca situation. It should’ve ended at dinner at most.

The only emotional beat that landed, imo, was Jamie and Roy’s hug. I do think Ted’s confession was strong, but the flow was kinda weird for me. By itself it works.

Two things working for me that wasn’t at the forefront of the episode was 1. How Ted’s problem is fucking over the team. 2. That Nate is in over his head.

Even if AFC Richmond had lost with Ted being in his A game, it wouldn’t have been that made and the team would’ve been more competitive. They were sloppy and making baffling errors. Their head was not in the game and it showed. Man City wasn’t that good, Richmond was just that ill prepared.

And who led training?

Nate.

Nate has great instincts, but he isn’t ready to lead a team and he still has a lot of work to do before growing into coaching a team as head coach.

But let me stress, this falls completely on Ted and even Beard to an extent. Yes, Ted is having emotional issues, however, many people rely on him and he wasn’t there. I don’t mean literally because teams should be able to function without their head coach for stretches of time. He hasn’t been there mentally and emotionally for most of the season. Because AFC Richmond’s competition isn’t as premier as Man City, it’s easier to appear more dominant that you are, esp if you’re coach isn’t on his A game. However, when you’re up against actual Goliath’s in the league, you’ll get your ass handed to you like Richmond did.

As I mentioned earlier, if they do go through with supporting and uplifting Sam/Rebecca, my time with this fandom ends with the season 2 finale.

But if we take Ted’s dark forest into consideration, there is another way this could play out. Actually many.

The one I can see happening that can get her somewhat redeemed, because some will never get over this happening in the first place, is her hitting rock bottom via her relationship with Sam. Something will happen or make her have unflattering thoughts about herself and her actions that will drive her into a tailspin.

And I’m unsure if it’ll be just a personal crisis or if it’ll also be a professional crisis.

Some may disagree with me, but I do want this affair to come to light. Because if it doesn’t, it sets up this fucked up precedent that Rebecca can do fucked up shit and get away with it in private.

Rebecca fucked over her club, uprooted a man’s life in bad faith, and almost ruined several people’s careers due to her bullshit in the first season. The fact that she didn’t have to answer for any of this is a God damn mercy on Ted’s part even though she didn’t ask for it.

Now for her to date/fuck a player because “she just has to know.” Because she doesn’t want to let something pass her by?

Yeah…no.

Rebecca’s fear of loneliness is leading her to make very bad decisions and I fear what this means for Sam’s career and relationships if this breaks. There were people who allegedly care for Sam, yet cheered for this relationship to happen. What do you think happens with his locker room relationships? I’ve already explained in another post that either this sours those relationships OR they want favors from him because he’s dating/fucking the boss.

He’ll get crucified in the media. He may even have trouble getting employed. Why? Because that’s how racism works.

“But, masterthespianduchovny, if Sam may receive hate and racist acts committed against him, why do you want the affair exposed?”

Because this shit show of a relationship isn’t about just Sam. It’s about Rebecca’s fear of loneliness leading her to make bad decisions that effects everyone not just her and Sam. It’s the fact that a white woman isn’t thinking about how her actions could have major consequences for a young black man.

Rebecca is so obsessed with not being lonely and being loved that 1. She never sought help or productive ways to deal with the fall out and humiliation of her marriage. 2. She dated a man because he was “fine” and not because she was actually invested in him and the relationship 3. She’s getting involved with a player on her team without thinking of any of the consequences. 4. She’s not considering the other players, the coaches, or anyone else she’s responsible for.

Oh, and considering we got that call from Sam’s dad…his relationship with his father will most likely suffer as a result. AND now that Dubai Air thing looks suspect, esp because she was talking to him around that time unknowingly.

Oop! And isn’t she getting her relationship with Nora back on track? Even though Nora and Sam can’t legally date and I’m not saying every decision should be swayed by a teenage girl, however, Rebecca is literally sabotaging every relationship just because she’s afraid of being alone (I agree with another poster who said we really didn’t need to explore this storyline, but alas…)

Although Ted forgave Rebecca for her scheming in season one, I honestly don’t think he’d be so forgiving for this. It’s his job to protect players and look out for their well being and how can he one his boss is involved with one of his players, which again, affects others players. This relationship has major consequences for other people who are not in it.

Also, Sam…for someone who people love to say is mature enough to date an older woman, not once did even be consider the ramifications of getting involved with the boss.

Not once.

And that looks bad because a mature person his age would be mindful of such a thing. This isn’t considered or, at least, isn’t said onscreen. Sam os either thinking with his dick, his heart, or both, but he isn’t thinking with his head. Because there is no way you’re thinking with your head and don’t stop to say, “hey, this thing could jeopardize my relationship with my teammates and the other people I work with. Maybe I should think some more of this before pursuing a relationship with my boss.” Sam was all in from the moment he decided he wanted to have dinner with Rebecca. There was no thinking on his end.

But Sam’s super mature, right?

Another poster mentioned that there might be a screaming match between Rebecca and ted and I’m so here for that. No, I don’t think this argument will be romantic. They’ll have legitimate gripes with each other, but yeah…this is an argument that needs to happen. Which will most likely be before Rebecca gets help.

That’s all assuming this happens. Like I said, they could have Sam and Rebecca being a power couple (🤮), or handle this some other way. But if this is going to be framed as a good thing, others can enjoy it, but the show will have one less viewer from me.

[bird-armadda]

Thoughts on Cultural Gatekeeping

Ok, so I’ve been seeing this post about qipao (can’t find the orig link, alas) and how white people shouldn’t wear it going around tumblr. And recently there was this controversy about Jordan Clark, the guy running The Aswang Project and the fact that he’s a white Canadian. Let me preface this by saying I’m Filipino-Chinese. I’ve been around tumblr for a while and I noticed there’s been this extremely disconcerting rise towards gatekeeping of minority cultures. Now, it’s not my place to tell Western diaspora POC how to handle their cultural dynamics. But what I can tell you - and what I have plenty of experience with - is the fact that gatekeeping is not a good thing. 

By saying gatekeeping is wrong, I don’t mean it’s wrong to bar access to  your culture’s sacred objects, traditions, or rites. I mean to say it’s disingenuous to deny the members of a majority culture access to learning, sharing knowledge about, and experiencing the parts of your culture that’s actually meant to be shared, so long as it’s done in a respectful manner. Or banning them from access to it outright, on the basis of their race. Take the Aswang Project issue: Jordan Clark has never been anything but respectful to Filipino culture, has devoted hours of painstaking research to Filipino mythology and folklore, has credited all his sources, and corrected misinformation. On the whole, he strives to ensure his blog be an up-to-date and and free resource for anyone who wishes to learn about our culture and history. But now he’s facing backlash because some Filipino-American twitter users feel betrayed that they had been enjoying a resource created by a white man. When said white man has never hidden his identity, or the fact that he’s Canadian.  Once again, I do not claim to know or have experienced POC minorities have experienced at the hands of white supremacy. I think it’s admirable that you’ve held onto your identity despite all the challenges. But word of advice from a third-generation Tsinay, who’s witnessed three generations of abuse within her family, all caused by racism from within the minority culture: gatekeeping, and prioritizing insularity and exclusivity strictly among the members of your race will only serve to hurt your community in the long run. It certainly hurt my Chinese grandfather, when he was practically disowned by the community for marrying my Filipino grandmother. It hurt my grandmother, who who was treated like an outsider and called a maidservant all her life. It hurt my mother, when her half-Filipino status ensured the members of the Chinese community never accepted her. This carried onto her marriage with my full-Chinese father, and the discrimination she suffered at the hands of his relatives. And this is still happening today, among my friends (the Great Wall is a real, painful thing, and I know people who weren’t allowed to get together with their Filipino boyfriends because of it, or who are experiencing problems with their Chinese SOs today). 

Why restrict the wearing of a qipao to members of the Chinese community, when it is basically just a dress that has no religious or sacred significance at all? What does this mean for the mixed-race members of your community? Especially those who don’t have identifiably Chinese physical features? Why heap abuse on a man who has never been anything but respectful to a culture that’s not his, and who ensured the people who belonged to it had access to everything he’d learned? (I’ll have you know that most of the books about Filipino mythology and culture are either prohibitively expensive, or out of print.) And if you’re already this belligerent against the members of the majority culture trying to learn about your culture and doing so with respect, how will you treat the ones who marry into your culture? How will you treat their children? There is a difference between people who fetishize culture and those who wish to learn more in good faith, and lashing out at the curious and the well-meaning only serves to ensure they remain ignorant at best. At worst, they’ll get actively hostile, which’ll create more problems for you, and your children, and your grandchildren in the long run. Like what happened to my family, and my friends’ families.  TL;DR: Gatekeeping will only faciliate racism. And racism is still racism, even by the minorities  against the members of the majority culture. It helps no one, and hurts everyone. 

[thisisthinprivilege]

I genuinely would like your thoughts on my experience: I am severely underweight. I get gawked at, my health brought up, and insulted because of my body by strangers, relentlessly. When I was obese, I never experienced any of that. I actually received way more compliments when i was overweight and when i was obese than i receive at my current weight. I have been respectful and made no negative comments - I'd appreciate if you could respond in the same manner. Thanks

I’m sorry you are getting negative comments for your appearance–appearance-based society is harsh–but I’m not sure what you’re expecting or hoping for in terms of an answer. One person’s experience, while important to them, is not necessarily reflective of more general trends.

You can read about the damaging and prevalent nature of fatphobia on this and many other blogs, and also in news and scholarly articles. Simply googling the phrases is enough to access these resources, but we’ve linked to them in our FAQ, and @bigfatscience and similar Tumblr blogs make it their entire mission to expose and discuss these resources.

It is well documented that fat people are openly and pervasively discriminated against in many core areas of life like in relationships, in medical situations, in parenting situations, and in employment. It is well documented that fat people are often hated and feared, and that people are taught in many cultural contexts to find fatness disgusting, unappealing, or even morally reprehensible.

I don’t think you really believe your singular experience, which unfortunately is a product of living in an appearance-based society in general, negates all of this other and more general evidence…do you?

If you’d like to discuss body-shaming that goes beyond fat-shaming, there are plenty of thin-centric body positivity blogs and resources out there. So why come here, if not to center thin problems in a fat space? You all took over body positivity…why not fat acceptance, too?

These are the kinds of trolls I’ll never understand. Health concern trolls, keyboard warriors, liftbros, fatpeoplehate denizens, evo psych drones, soldiers of the obesity epipanic, honeymoon dieters–I understand why you think we’re your enemy (though I don’t agree, of course).

But those of you who are picked on for appearance-based features that aren’t related to being fat…why do you think this voids or invalidates what fat people go through? Is it just that you need to be the biggest victim?

I get that in social media spaces it can sound like activists are engaging in a victim mentality by centering our activism around educating people in the ways in which we’re mistreated and discriminated against. Just getting people to take thin privilege seriously was a HUGE thing when we got started. It’s what put this blog on the map, and very controversially.

In the years that followed the founding of TiTP, thin privilege became more of an accepted concept, appearing in “serious” publications like the NYT. But it wasn’t like that at first. We had to work hard and put up with 1) trollwaves, 2) doxxing, 3) entire subreddits dedicated to hating us (hi, former r/fatpeoplehate and current r/fatpeoplestories!), 4) being ghostnoted and suppressed by Tumblr (who has ghostnoted us for over five years now), and Facebook (who banned linking to TiTP a couple of years ago), 5) being flagged as an “unsafe” site in some child-centric safesearch algorithms. And still, we’re here, we’ve persisted and only gained more followers in that time.

How does talking about thin privilege–which is real, and whose existence and attempt to obtain it abuses, oppresses, and kills fat people regularly–hurt you?

Really?

Do you not have empathy for others? Can you not imagine having a different experience other than your own? I remember what it was like to be thin. Why do you think I founded a thin privilege blog? Because I was a thin hot thang from 15 - 25. Before that, I was fat. After that, I was (and am) fat.

I know there’s a whole different set of problems to deal with when you’re thin, particularly when you’re a woman, though sometimes also when you’re a man–my first long-term relationship was with a guy whose BMI was very underweight, who worried about not looking as buff as his lawyer peers and thus competitive with them, who worried about simple stomach flus sending him to the hospital because he didn’t have a lot of weight to spare, who actively attempted to gain weight (which is, when you’re naturally very thin, as hard as losing weight and will come off very quickly as soon as you abandon your regimen).

I know there’s a lot of double-standards about body shape. About being the “right kind” of thin (big boobs and butt, though in my day you were supposed to have big boobs and no butt). About being tall but not too tall (I was always too tall). About wearing tight clothes that weren’t too tight. About the backlash from fatphobia, which is the jealousy and desire of many not-thin people to obtain thin privilege, rearing its head as “thin-shaming”.

I also remember being treated in general like a human being worthy of 1) love, 2) sex, 3) being the heroine in movies and stories, 4) employment, 5) family love and children, 6) appropriate medical treatment. I remember how different all that felt from when I’d been fat before, and how differently I was treated after I was fat again.

How I was visible when I was thin, which sometimes felt bad, like I was too exposed, but was mostly good. Normal. A fellow human being amongst other human beings.

But when I was fat I was invisible in a bad way, like being shunned, and when briefly becoming visible, the anti-hero of some cautionary tale, freak show, or pathetic cry-athon.  There is very, very little good visibility in being fat, when we’re allowed to be visible at all. Just being visible subjects us and our representatives to derision. By being visible we are “glorifying obesity”. Being visible when thin is simply normal human living. The ones who do it really well get paid, simply for by being visible whilst thin. Their stories are seen as aspirational, not cautionary.

I don’t understand the people who come on TiTP to cry thin tears, because you’re a part of this culture as much as I am. If you have even a shred of empathy you’d realize that, at the very least, a blog that talks about all the ways in which being thin is privileged, to the point of putting fat people in danger at the hand of medical professionals and authorities, is not the place to talk about getting catty comments about your thin body.

Why in the world would you ride up in here and expect us to privilege your thin concerns in a place that’s all about criticizing thin privilege?

Go to literally any other body positivity blog. A thin person probably runs it, they’ll publish your complaints.

Complain to literally anyone on the street. You will get a much, much more positive reception to your thin concerns than any fat person talking about fat hatred, abuse, and oppression.

Here? Fucking sit down and listen, for once. You might learn something.

-ArteToLife

[qbrooklyn1056]

El angelito que cambió NYC!

The lack of resources when it comes to children should never be an issue. Why is it that rich children get treated so, much better than less fortunate children? Aren't children, children and they all should be loved and tread equally? This is no where near the case for most poor children. The system seems like they fail to protect black and brown babies, like to them its not as important as finding justice for white baby. When describing children, you think of lovable, sweet and some of the smartest little humans you’ll come across. Children are the key to joy some may say and their pure innocence makes up for some of the most hilarious and memories moments. What happens when you have people who use their children innocence for their own personal gains, and the lack of a system making sure putting the safety of children needs at top priority. You get a dead child and a ton of excuses. Either way, 6-year-old Elisa Izquierdo, who would have been 32 years old this year, but instead is resting in Cypress Hills Cemetery. This would be at the hands of the people who she should’ve been most protected by.

Elisa Izquierdo was born on February 11th 1989, in Brooklyn NY, at Woodhull hospital. She was born to Gustavo Izquierdo, who was a Cuban immigrant dancer, and her mother Awilda Lopez who was Puerto Rican. The pair met in a homeless shelter in Fort Greene Brooklyn, where Izquierdo was a caretaker, and she was a resident of the shelter. Two years into the relationship Lopez got pregnant with Elisa. Izquierdo would break up with Lopez after discovering she was heavy into using crack cocaine, and that was actually part of the reason she was into the shelter anyway. She would lose her two oldest kids to child welfare (Now ACS), the same year Elisa was born. Elisa had crack cocaine in her system and Elisa was permanently place with her father. He made sure she was his world and got her into a good school, but a health condition would interfere with him paying for Elisa schooling. Says the daily news, who covered the whole story throughout the trail.

Should a parent that had been on drugs get their children back? For most, I would say, Hell No, not untroubled the child is 17 and older. This way the child can fight back or speak up against the abuse if its happening. Plus,, most abuse patents, usually only go after the weak and small, because they can't fight back. Now, the same year her mother claimed to completely drug treatment and had an apartment on Manhattan Lower East side, Rutgers Houses projects. She was now married to a maintenance worker named Carlos Lopez. Lopez was granted unsupervised visits every second weekend. This is where her two oldest siblings would tell family, that Elisa was being abused and lock in a cupboard by their mom and step-dad. (Family members did nothing). While Elisa would return home and begin bedwetting and had scars all over including her genitalia. She would vomit after coming from her mom house and would refuse to go in bathrooms. (Information also provided by the daily news), I don't know about most people, but if a child is showing all these signs, something is very wrong. This is nothing you sweep under a rug this is something the U.S. Marshall's should even be notified of. This little girl was being treated like a human punching bag, all for just being herself. Elisa story should be made into a movie or shown at them programs for people who abuse kids. Should also be shown to new parents, so they can have an understanding of the real world. Even people thinking about having a baby Should see this story, so they know how much work kids are but they may also come to realize they're not ready for a child.

Her father is the type of dad I believe anybody wouldn't want as a dad or any woman would love to have a baby by him, because of how much he cared and loved his daughter. He was a real standup guy who just wanted the best for his baby girl. He never could imagine that the person he had a baby with, was the devil in the flesh. Himand teacher notice the bruises, and she said she didn’t want to go back to her house ever again. Elisa also, told a social worker what had happened, and Izquierdo tried everything to stop the visitation rights, but the courts said she could continue to see her daughter, but under the conditions she doesn’t hit her child Izquierdo would purchase tickets for Cuba for the date of May 26, 1994, he planned on moving him and Elisa there. He would be rushed to the hospital in May, finding that he had Lung Cancer, he would pass on the same day him and his daughter was supposed to start their new life May 26, 1994. The director of the school still tried to report the mother after the father died because the school was worried. Since he wasn’t there to fight for her anymore. I sometimes wonder why God took him away from that Elisa, because she really needed him at this time, but even though this story is tragic. It's because of Elisa's story a rules and regulations have change when it comes to children.

This is were we see things get really bad for little Elisa. This is were child welfare dropped the ball over and over. This is were this beautiful little girl will lose her life because everyone around her was dropping the ball. Her mother would get temporary custody after she filed a permanent custody order of Elisa, Izquierdo family would challenge the decision, Lopez lawyer made her seem like a saint, who wasn’t going to use drugs again, and Elisa wanted to be with her biological mother. Judge Phoebe Greenbaum approved permanent custody in September 1994. Elisa was withdrawn from private school and sent to public school 126 in Manhattan. She was said to be “uncommunicative, emotionally disturbed, and urinated often”. Also, the principle at the new school said “Elisa was tearing out hair and walking with difficulty.” In 1995, some ones sent an anonymous letter to child welfare and said Lopez cut off Elisa hair and was locking her in dark rooms. The school kept reporting and child welfare kept saying “Not reportable “due to lack of evidence. The evidence was obviously there. It was supposed to be a caseworker checking on Elisa all the time. Lopez back on drugs and that spring withdrew Elisa from 126 and didn’t enroll her another school. She was in her six child and but Elisa for some reason was always her target. Why wasn't this judge disbarred? This is a slap in the face to any child going through abuse. You are basically giving the abuser a pass to do whatever they want to the child with no consequences. Do you really think that a person on drugs, who beats her child everyday, is going to change overnight? I'm here to tell you absolutely not, Not when they don't even like there own child. I believe a lot of these people should have been brought up on charges and given prison time to show the world we will not tolerate this kind of abuse.

To imagine this poor little girl being beating and abused by somebody that she hope would protect, turned out to be a monster. The mother was an evil women with real problems, besides drug use. In my opinion she knew exactlywhat she was doing, because she didn'treat all her kids that way or even think about doing half the things she did to Elisato the others. I mean this women made this child. eat her own feces, sexually assaulted with a hairbrush, hair mopped with the floor, and way more horrible things. Carlos Lopez would beat Elisa and the oldest two because they weren’t his. November 22nd. Lopez would phone her sister and says her daughter was “retarded on the bed" and she had fluid coming from her nose and mouth, which was said to be brain fluid. She was told to take her to the hospital and she said “I’ll think about it after she did the dishes.” The next day a neighbor came to see what was going on and told Lopez to call the police and she said “No.” The neighbor did and Lopez talked of committing suicide. She would admit that she threw her daughter into a wall two days prior. The autopsy revealed broken fingers, vaginal tear, burns, welts, and a bone protruding through her skin.

Elisa story gained lots of media attention and the Newspapers, such as dateline, New York times, and time magazine just to name a few. Everyone was in some way scolding child welfare services for dropping the ball horribly. Judge Phoebe Greenbaum faced a lot of backlash and claimed she followed proper procedures in the case. Then Mayor Rudolph Giulliani would create ACS (Administration for Children Services). Devoted to child welfare, which years down the line would have a lot of similar cases like Elisa. In 1996 then Governor George Pataki signed Elisa's law which is for every agency whether private or city work together to make sure children are safe, and to also protect the child’s privacy or workers in case of any situation with abuse. This is about the need to increase accountability in the city.

This whole situation is just wrong, so many people failed this child and looked the other way. I guess it goes back to what I was asking at the beginning. I believe poverty can play a big part in children not getting enough love and support from their families, because they have to work and make sure things are taking care of. One thing I learned is no matter what, talk to a child and see if anything is going on. Any little sign of anything you confront the situation, you don’t want to wait until it too late to do something about it. Hurting one of most God creatures is absolutely disgusting, and there should be no coming back from that. I wonder if she was from a family with money would child service had taken her case way more serious? The answer most likely is yes. Money talks in this country and the sad part is, people don’t take action until its always too late. One child is too many to lose to child abuse.

 • Daily News

[randomreasonstolive]

Hi I need help I recently got diagnosed w/ BPD and I feel like such a burden on people. I’ve tried to explain to my boyfriend(my FP) that he needs to be careful what he says because little things set off my sense of abandonment, but I don’t think he really understands. How can I help him understand me?

Hello, sweetheart,

I (N) have had BPD, diagnosed for over 10 years. I’ve been doing a lot of therapy centered around it, including DBT, or Dialectical behavior therapy. DBT was specifically created by Dr Marsha Linehan to help people with BPD, though it is helpful for others as well. BPD is something that is a great struggle, as anyone with it will agree. Here’s a website that has some good DBT resources for free. 

However, as someone with BPD, I can tell you this:

You can’t expect your boyfriend to be careful about what he says around you.

You can ask him to avoid saying a few things that set you off, such as certain trigger words. I have certain ones that I have clarified with C (usually ones that remind me of my mother), so he doesn’t say them. If he does say them, he apologizes afterward, because we’ve discussed ahead of time what those things do.

But I wouldn’t just tell him, “Be careful what you say around me, it might set me off.” That’s what people call ‘Walking on eggshells’; which means being afraid of saying anything for fear of the reaction. That is also a form of emotional abuse, although you probably aren’t meaning for it to be that way.

Imagine not knowing what kind of things will make someone upset, then saying something you think is fine, only to have them be triggered. It’s scary. Its kind of like being afraid of saying something to an abusive parent for fear of backlash. You don’t want someone you care about to be afraid of speaking to you.

The main point of being BPD is that you have to deal with the feelings of abandonment yourself. If your boyfriend says something that sets you off, you have to take a deep breath and deal with it inwardly. Understand that he didn’t say it to hurt you, and he didn’t know it would, so reacting badly isn’t fair to him. Understand those feelings are yours, and yours alone, so you have to come to terms with them.

What you can do is talk to him ahead of time and tell him specific things to avoid saying. Make sure you express them clearly, and explain why they’re upsetting to you. If he does say them in the future, don’t automatically get upset - remind him that you’d asked him not to. Remember that he’s human and he will make mistakes, but that doesn’t mean he’ll leave you.

BPD can feel like the whole world is against you and you just so, so desperately want someone to care. But that’s the thing about BPD - even when someone shows they care, your mind will black them out (aka ‘splitting’) and ignore all of the good. This still happens to me often, actually.

You have to learn to cope with the feelings that happen when someone says something that hurts. You can’t control how you feel, but you CAN control how you react. If something little sets you off, then you need to learn how to remind yourself that it is little and that your reactions aren’t appropriate for it.

I’m sorry if this is coming across as harsh. It took a lot of harshness to wake me up from the mindset that other people needed to cater to my feelings, instead of me coming to terms with them myself. It’s not fair or okay to expect other people to change for you - you need to be able to cope and self-soothe. I still struggle with this daily, actually, which is why I practice DBT as often as I can.

I love you. Know that having BPD isn’t your fault and it isn’t fair to you - I understand. But there is hope. BPD isn’t curable, but it is treatable. Many people report that with regular therapy and DBT, their BPD has gotten better as they’ve grown. But the only way to get better is to learn how to get better independently - because you’re strong enough to do so. I believe in you. We believe in you.

I hope the new decade has good things in store for you, sweetheart. Because you deserve good things.

- N

[kob131]

https://rwdestuffs.tumblr.com/post/625278536172879872/done-dirty-shipping

Maybe it’s because I’m still not over how the writers just up and offed Clover and are trying to use the ship he had with Qrow for marketing purposes, but still.- If they hadn’t done that, maybe there wouldn’t be as much backlash for what they did?

*looks behind Dudeblade to see all the Arkos shippers still trying to burn RT to the ground for sinking their ship.*

I highly doubt that.

They promoted Qrover (And that’s the name I’ll be using to avoid getting into the proper ship tags) for the sake of merchandise. They do the same with Blang (The name I’ll be using for the Blake x Yang ship to avoid getting into their tags as well), it simply seems as if these ships are just there to keep an audience invested in the show for the hope that their ship will become canon before the final episode of the series.

Ah huh-

Let’s check RT’s merch store shall we?

https://store.roosterteeth.com/collections/rwby

This is the store showcasing RWBY merch by the ‘Featured’ selection. Notice something...unusual?

Yeah, the front page of their ‘featured’ section (which would tell you how they market the show) has three pieces of possible shipping merch...and it’s Renora and White Rose. NOT Bumbleby OR Fair Game. And I do mean ‘possible’ because one could debate that since Ren and Nora are always paired together and considering White Rose is so ignored by the fandom equally ‘shippy’ moments are widely ignored- it’s not inherently romantic.

In fact, none of the three given pages have Bumbleby merch. The closest is the Yang Vs. Adam hoodie...which excludes BLAKE. SO it’s closer to Yang X Adam merch.

But maybe that’s not enough for you. Let’s switch to the ‘Best Selling’ selection. Of that we have...one shippy piece of merch. The same Renora piece from before. Odd, considering if they’re using shipping to sell the show: Why isn’t the merch, the open support of the show, flooded with shipping merch? Why is both the stuff they are pushing people to buy AND the stuff people are buying NOT showing up?

Seems rather counter intuitive ...unless they AREN’T doing that.

This post was made about a month after the finale. If miles pulls the same thing that LoK did with the LGBT+ characters in his show, not only is that hypocritical (As he would be doing the exact same thing that LoK did), but it would also be significantly worse.

Actually he fundamentally can’t. Because Miles wrote in at least three LGBT characters already into the show. So he’s being better by your standards.

Not only was LoK screwed by the network numerous times in regards to their budget, but they were also forced to not make the relationship between Korra and Asami as overt as they would have liked.

And so was RWBY screwed with budget AND resources by Gray. Andd yet no word from you on that...

And again- Already showed at least three characters being lesbians, if not five since Scarlet and Nolan are gay in Before The Dawn, a book written under Miles and Kerry’s supervision.

What network is keeping the writers from doing the same thing with stuff like Blang, Qrover, or whatever the ship name is for Terra and Saphron? Why do they only get hand holding, soft looks™, and confirmation outside of the canon show?

Bumbleby- Canonical status unconfirmed.

Fair Game- Never intended to be a ship. It was just a reference to the waitress back in Volume 4 along with the usual shipping exaggeration.

Terra X Saphron- They literally have a fucking child together.

Other shows like She-Ra, Steven Universe, and Black Lightning managed to have LGBT+ Representation in their shows despite the networks trying to reign them in. So a show that has no such restrictions can’t do it because…?

They have. You’re choosing to ignore it.

To say nothing of the quality of these since Steven Universe is the only respected one and is rather unique in comparison.

Nora and Pyrrha can forcibly kiss Ren and Jaune respectively, but Same-Sex couples have to settle for elementary-school crush stuff?

Terra and Saphron have a fucking kid. And two of your examples are bullshit.

Meanwhile, how are those ships fairing again? ... One is permenantly sunk and wasn’t even confirmed considering Jaune’s feelings for Pyrrha are not confirmed to be romantic and the other is having massive issues that could sink any romantic connections?

And how do people like you react to any kind of strife regarding same sex stuff? ... Called Illa a psycho lesbian despite being significantly more stable, regretful and safer than her straight counterpart Adam?

Yeah, why don’t YOU tell me why a fanbase known for being abusive towards the creators and hounded them for YEARS about this shit isn’t being fed?

Also, this is a dick move. $16.00 for a sunk ship? Not only that, it’s a sunk mlm ship. A kind of representation that hasn’t gotten any real representation outside of Scarlet? And even then, that was confirmed in a different book.

More like a set of pins that can be used for cosplay.

TBH, mlm shippers have every right to be upset about this.

Straight shippers have had the biggest ship sunk and permanently in limbo (Arkos) and the second one is going through a massive rough patch (Renora) while the third and fourth are regularly decried as pedophilia (Lancaster and Rose Garden) if not outright abuse (Tauradonna).

The others get confirmed ships but not the ones they wanted. Boo fucking hoo.

Whether the writers intended to or not, Qrover was coded, and they queerbaited.

Queerbaiting is a marketing technique for fiction and entertainment[6] in which creators hint at, but then do not actually depict, same-sex romance or other LGBTQ representation.[7] They do so to attract ("bait") a queer or straight ally audience with the suggestion of relationships or characters that appeal to them,[8] while at the same time attempting to avoid alienating other consumers.[6][9]

They literally CANNOT do that by definition. There are same sex relationships AND characters to connect to. If you try promoting this vague and broad definition of queerbaiting-

Well, what’s to stop the Snowbird shippers from claiming they were straight baited with Winter and Qrow or Blake and Sun?

Do you REALLY want to cross that threshold?

P.S. ‘Coding’ effectively means ‘I see stereotypes’ so you’re kind of being a douchebag here.

Let’s also remember that Pyrrha’s entire existence literally revolved around Jaune and she was meant to die to further his development. Jaune x Pyrrha was literally made to develop Jaune and pretty much only Jaune, with the other characters’ reaction to her death being an afterthought.

*cough* Ruby has gotten more development from Pyrrha’s death than Jaune *cough* 

Then there was also that one Blang bag that cost like… $60.00. The writers are using these popular ships for merchandising usage and to try and reel in fans who are wlw or mlm with these ships.

Which is why they...don’t...show...up on...the...merch store...

Fun Fact: Dudeblade never shows the so called 60 dollar bag despite CLEARLY being able to screen shot images. So we’re expected to take his word for it despite not being honest in this very video.

They didn’t even have enough self-awareness to feel bad about it.

So how exactly are we supposed to trust them when they don’t realize what they did to the community?

He says as he ignores aspects of LGBT rep in RWBY, outright called a lesbian a psycho for daring to be an antagonist despite a much more unstable person to compare to and ignores the LGBT rep in other RT shows, including Camp Camp which has two heroic gay married men in the show.

Whether you ship Qrover or not, this was a massively dick move to pull. And these idiots have a lot of things to make up for it. If they choose to do it at all.

You know, that dick move you forced onto them.

And yet you doing worse (’Hey when is Miles gonna die so he can be replaced?’) deserves no making up?

Where were the guys who said that revealing that Pilot Boi was gay before offing him was a bad idea? Why did the writers not realize that this sort of stuff was going to come off as queerbaiting?

Probably because Eddy did it himself and didn’t know about this.

But really… Way to go RT. Your dumbass decision has now turned off members of the LGBT Community and caused some of them to cancel their subscriptions.

Hope that shock value was worth it.

Just like with Pyrrha, something you yourself even said before.

I fail to see how this is RT’s fault outside ‘you dared to exercise free will!’ considering that your logic would dictate changing the show the minute an LGBT ship becomes popular.

Even as you’ve spoken out against this kind of thing with Death Battle (accusations of sexism).

Way to go with the hypocrisy Dudeblade.

[longformautie]

Addressing sexism of autistic men

CW: gender-based violence, including murder and rape

I. Introduction

This post has been coming for a long time. And I mean a LONG time. My thoughts on this topic have been evolving constantly. They will probably evolve even after I post this. I am still learning and welcome feedback.

I was prompted to write this post during the pre-coronavirus Before Times, when I saw that the popular Facebook page Humans Of New York had profiled an autistic man who had become a pickup artist. For context, pickup artists are a group of straight men who will cynically do whatever it takes to get them laid, which of course means blatantly ignoring the needs of the women they interact with, and who share strategies with one another. The autistic man in the photo post talked about how before he was a pickup artist he was hopeless with women, and now he was getting girls - getting laid, even. He said he knew it was manipulative, but that it was only fair - after all, it’s not like anyone had ever sympathized with him for his social difficulties. I was curious about what people had to say in the comments section; turns out, I wasn’t satisfied by any of the takes I found.

The takes I didn’t like can be broken down into two categories. Category number one were formulations like “poor him, he just wants to be accepted.” I’m not even a little bit sympathetic to this take and will only be spending a moment on it. Suffice it to say, it’s hard to take these people at their word that they care about the autism struggle when they don’t show up in droves to the banners of the neurodiversity movement with this level of enthusiasm. Rather, we are part of a culture that likes to sympathize with toxic men. If the man wasn’t autistic, they’d find some other excuse, but since he is, in defending him they can also activate the ableist notion that autistic people are incapable of respecting boundaries. I choose the word “incapable” because if your position is that autistic people sometimes don’t know better than to violate a boundary, the logical conclusion is simply that someone should teach them. To sincerely and enthusiastically take up this kind of “poor autistic guy doesn’t know any better” rhetoric, you have to presume complete incompetence of autistic people and that we’ll never learn, so that when a straight autistic man does a violating thing to a woman, they can shrug their shoulders and say, “well, I guess nothing can be done about this.” This attitude is sexism and ableism couched in a delusion of sympathy.

Category number two of takes, I like lots better but still am not quite satisfied with, and can be roughly summarized: “This isn’t caused by autism, it’s caused by being an asshole.” While I agree that being an asshole is the main ingredient in this cocktail, I don’t think the autism should be dismissed as an irrelevant detail. I think there is a sexism problem specific to autistic men that needs to be separately talked about and addressed. I intend to do so in this post, without assigning blame either to the autism or to the women being abused.

I want to note in advance that this post will be cishet-centric, not because I think straight experiences are universal, partly because the behavior of cishet men is what’s at task here, but mostly because I have no idea how these issues affect LGBTQIA communities. If anyone is able and willing offer insight or resources on that topic, I’d love to hear from you.

I. Autistic men

Having experienced it firsthand, I can say for sure that autistic loneliness is a vicious cycle. By loneliness, I mean a lack of any social connection, not just a lack of romantic or sexual partners. Autism makes social interaction more difficult, which makes it harder to find friends, but, crucially, not having friends also makes social interaction more difficult. More people to interact with means more practice with social interaction; it also means more assistance from comparatively clued-in people who care about us. This vicious cycle can also manifest with respect to a subset of people. For example, an autistic child who only socially interacts with adults may have trouble forming connections with peers. For the purpose of this discussion, I want to focus on the problems this presents for autistic boys who want to interact with girls in their age group.

The scarcity of cross-gender social interaction during childhood need not be framed as a uniquely autistic experience. Societal forces sort us by gender from an incredibly early age, so the vast majority of our social connections in childhood are with people of the same gender. Furthermore, especially during and after adolescence, boys and men are discouraged from being emotionally close with one another. Thus, the norms of masculinity isolate us almost totally from peers of all genders. Our social connections with men must be superficial; our social connections with women must be non-platonic. For those of us who crave the emotional intimacy that our same-gender friendships lack, a romantic relationship is the only socially acceptable opportunity to forming a deep, loving bond with someone close to our own age.

Enter autism (again). Dating, when we hit adolescence, is wholly new to us, and we have been given no opportunity to adjust ourselves to its social norms. Autism makes this a particular challenge, as do gender roles in dating. Since men are supposed to initiate and women are supposed to merely give subtle hints (if not be straight-out “hard to get”), straight autistic men face both the pressure of leaping into an arena that intimidates us, and the bewilderment of not knowing whether it’s working. If I had a crush on you in high school, I probably kept it a secret; if you had a crush on me, I probably didn’t notice.

Worth noting here that none of the things I’ve listed are evidence against autistic men’s actual attractiveness or appeal to women. We are facing access barriers that accumulate over the course of our lives until we finally figure out how to start ripping them down, and when we do, we quite often do get to have romantic and sexual relationships. But the prevailing narrative about autism and other disabilities is that they’re unsexy, and a lot of autistic men buy into that. I myself thought I was one of those autistic men who’d never date or have sex until experience taught me otherwise.

Knowing all this, we can see why a lot of autistic men might feel both that they need a relationship to be happy, and that they cannot possibly have one. This makes us prime targets for recruitment, because the sense of personal injury at being deprived of sexual experiences for reasons beyond one’s control is as indispensable an ingredient in the various movements of the “manosphere” as the sexism itself. It’s not that autistic men are any more or any less sexist than regular men, but that the sexists among us already feel exactly the way these communities require them to feel: deeply aggrieved, and deeply desperate. Pickup artistry both validates this sense of personal injury, and sells itself as the solution: a set of simple, logical rules that, when followed, will grant success. But it misses the uncomfortable truth that while everyone deserves to receive love, no particular person is obliged to give it. This is a deeply frustrating contradiction with no easy solution, but the solution certainly is not to cynically manipulate women into doing the thing you want.

III. Allistic women

I never was a pickup artist, but that doesn’t mean I never harbored a grievance against women for my loneliness. After all, I thought, wouldn’t my perpetual singleness end if women were more direct and assertive? As such, I worry that other people who read this may end up pinning the responsibility for autistic loneliness onto individual women too. The previous section hints at why that’s wrong, but I also want to take the time to explain why it’s deeply unfair.

My autism and masculinity were first brought into conjunction (or was it conflict?) in my mind in my freshman year of college. One of my new Facebook friends shared a Tumblr blog called “Straight White Boys Texting” which was a collection of screenshots of unwanted straight white boy texts, running the gamut from simple inability to take a hint to bona fide “what color is your thong” garbage. I felt pretty attacked, partly because I wasn’t yet used to seeing myself as part of a “straight white boys” collective that people didn’t like, and partly because what I saw was a bunch of guys missing social cues and taking things literally, just as a younger me would have done. I felt like I needed to say something - and boy, was that a bad decision. I said something about how the women in the screenshots needed to be more direct, and got instant (and deserved) backlash both for focusing on the least important problem in the interactions and for placing responsibility for a male behavior problem squarely back onto women.

At the time, I didn’t have a coherent framework for understanding sexism. Since then, I’ve learned that giving a direct no can occasionally get women killed, and most often at least gets them yelled at and insulted. Giving a yes also comes with its own risks - the risk of rape, in (unfortunately-not-actually-so-)extreme cases where that inch of “yes” results in guys taking a mile, but also the more pervasive risk of being socially stigmatized as slutty or promiscuous. It’s often the most women can get away with to be subtle (rather than completely silent) about all of their wants and needs, so that a discerning man who actually cares will know what those wants and needs are and respect them.

This puts those of us who have trouble with reading subtle signals in a difficult position if we inadvertently cross a boundary, but that’s not a problem women can reasonably be expected to solve. If a man crosses a woman’s boundaries because he simply doesn’t respect them, he wants to make it look like it’s an accident so that he will be forgiven. “But Aaron,” you might say, “didn’t you just say that the right thing to do in those situations is to teach people the right behavior, not ignore it?” Yes, that’s true. But that assumes the continuation of a conversation that a woman might feel safer just skipping; if a man is making her feel uncomfortable, she’s probably not inclined to continue to converse with him in order to establish whether his intentions were good or bad. When we impose the burden of freeing males from loneliness onto women, we are asking them to continue to interact with frightening men at their own peril.

Ironically enough, some of these frightening men are the autistic pickup artists from part 1. This means that pickup artists, far from “solving” the problems with dating they feel aggrieved by, are actually making it more difficult for everyone except themselves by giving women one more reason to be scared and cynical, and men who slip up one more type of monster to be mistaken for.

IV. Autistic women

At first glance, it seems like there’s a choice to be made here, between supporting autistic men who want to be valued as potential romantic and sexual partners and supporting allistic women who just want to be safe. But what I’m realizing more and more is that when there seems to be a conflict between the needs of two marginalized groups, the right choice is generally to avoid picking a side and instead find ways to support both groups. This works well, not only because both groups get what they want, but because if a side must be chosen, the people at the intersection of the two groups will lose both ways.

Autistic women bear the brunt of every part of this mess, as described in detail by Kassiane Asasumasu on her blog, Radical Neurodivergence Speaking (see  the links later in this paragraph). Because autistic men fear ableism from neurotypical women, we tend to believe that autistic women are the only partners who will accept us for who we are. As a result, autistic women report being swarmed at autism meetup groups by men looking for a girlfriend, and those men who struggle with independent living are more than willing to escape that by leaning on the patriarchal expectation that the woman does all the chores, even when she is an autistic woman who struggles with the exact same tasks. This means autistic women actually interact with sexist autistic men the most, and not only are they subject to the same toxic shit that allistic women have to deal with, but they’re also expected to “understand” these men and thus endlessly tolerate their (supposedly inevitable) shitty behavior.

V. Solutions

Fortunately, the choice between female safety and autistic desirability is not a choice we have to make, but the solutions are not as simple as members of one or the other group simply choosing to behave differently. Rather, they require the collective participation of all kinds of people.

Addressing autistic male sexism necessarily means addressing sexism. It means respecting when women say no, rather than making it an unpleasant experience they might fear to repeat. It means teaching consent in special education classrooms, so that no one can claim in good faith that an autistic boy who crosses a boundary simply doesn’t know better. It means teaching girls, as they grow into women, that they are under no obligation to tolerate sexist behavior out of sympathy for the sexist man.

But addressing sexism also means supporting boys and men as they escape the confines of conventional masculinity. It means enabling and encouraging them to have close friends of all genders. It means reminding them that they don’t need a woman, any more than a woman needs a man.

In addition to addressing sexism, we need to address the ableism that prevents autistic people from accessing not just dating but emotional closeness of all kinds. We need to stimulate autistic people’s peer relationships at all stages of life. We cannot do this if special ed teachers continue to view us as broken allistic people rather than whole autistic people, nor can we do it if they view us as incomplete adults rather than entire children. If an autistic boy is unable to learn about condoms because it offends the sensibilities of the teacher, or if he is unable to learn how to talk like a teenager because his parents would like him to learn to speak like an adult, then that autistic boy is being deprived both of autonomy and of the opportunity to learn.

Furthermore, we need to teach allistic children how to interact with their autistic peers. Autistic people need no additional incentive to learn how to interact with the societal majority who control their access to jobs, housing, healthcare, education, political representation, and much more. Allistic people can, however, choose not to bother learning how to support and include us and face almost no social consequences beyond not getting to see my cool maps. Rather than alleviating this unequal distribution of incentives, adults generally exacerbate it by focusing only on the social development of autistic children with respect to interactions with allistic people, but not on the social development of allistic children towards being able to interact with autistic people. This is because the prevailing view regarding autism is still that our modes of moving through the world are incorrect and defective, whereas allistic modes of social interaction are viewed as normal and valid even when they exclude others.

The problem of autistic male sexism is hairy and complicated, but if we take the above steps, we can solve it without further stigmatizing autism, and without victim-blaming women. We don’t have to leave anyone behind in this conversation. Rather, by fighting both for autism acceptance and consent culture, we can produce a more just world where everyone gets the love and respect that they deserve.

[lastsonlost]

A step-by-step handbook for destroying a man's life with lie.

INTRODUCTION

A s women, we have been oppressed by men's physical advantages over us since the beginning of humankind.

But now, in today's modern societies, the tables are finally turning.

Especially with the advent of the Internet and social media, and the economy's transition from

manufacturing to information, women are leveraging their natural advantages (e.g., social skills, emotional intelligence, and communication) to gain power.

You've probably utilized these advantages to some degree already, in one form or another. For example, as a child in school, I recall the boys using physical strength and aggression (e.g., punching) to bully girls. That was their power. Girls, on the other hand, used communication and accusation (e.g., spreading rumors) to undermine boys. This is our power!

The purpose of this handbook is to be a resource:

a collection of tools and techniques that have proven

powerful in women's struggle against patriarchy. I did not invent these methods; I only describe them. Be advised, however, that the methods outlined in this handbook were chosen for their utility, or their ability to achieve results, rather than for their legal or ethical merit. In other words, the information presented herein does not purport to be legally or ethically sound. What is considered to be "right" or "legal" often changes with time, tl1e prevailing culture, and the evolution of law.

This handbook is a work of free speech. How the content is used, misused, or not used is at the sole discretion of the reader, and I (as the author) retain no responsibility. Similarly, I'm publishing this book under the pseudonym of Angela Confidential to protect from backlash.

Enjoy!

Just a little sample of what's in this book.........

CHAPTER 1

THE DAMN FUNDAMENTALS

Let's begin with some introductions. We have three key friends, or fundamentals, that make it possible to destroy a man now (DAMN). To DAMN well, it's important to know them well.

Our first ally is Allison Allegation. Allegation an be so simple, effective, and easy to employ that it's elegant. An allegation is a claim, usually without proof, that someone has done something illegal or wrong. A claim, at minimum, requires nothing more than an assertion.

For example, if I yell from a roof top that the world is flat, I have successfully made a claim. Similarly, identifying wrongdoing requires only observation, recollection, or a minimal amount of imagination. From lying to murder, any behavior that you've heard of, seen, experienced, or can think of that violates an ethical or a legal standard can suffice for an allegation.

However, it's the last part of what constitutes an allegation that makes it uniquely useful: no evidence is required.

This independence from proof allows you to make an allegation about any man doing anything without being encumbered by a need for facts.

But how can something as intangible as the spoken word, without evidence, have enough merit or power to DAMN? Admittedly, if left completely on her own, Allison Allegation has relatively little power.

That's where our other two friends, Mary Media and Arthur Authority, assist.

Mary Media, our second ally, encompasses just about any means of communication. Media can be as elementary as whispers of gossip, although nowadays the term most often refers to mass communication platforms such as television, the Internet, or mainstream media networks. Of course, it also includes social media, such as Twitter and Facebook, which you will soon see are especially well suited to DAMN.

So how does Mary Media help Allison Allegation?

Well, interestingly, they help each other. You've probably heard the philosophical question, "If a tree falls in the woods, and no one hears it, did it make a sound?"

Although the answer to that question is still debated, it's certain that if an allegation is made and no one knows about it, it has no power. Fortunately, however, the opposite is also true:

the more people who know about an allegation, the more powerful it becomes.

Thankfully for Allison Allegation and for our purposes, the modern mainstream media excel at spreading information far and wide. They do it to make money-lots of money-from advertisers. Yet advertisers need more than just a way to reach people; they also need a way to get people to pay attention to their advertisements (and ultimately buy products).

This is where media content comes in. Media content can be videos, website posts, "breaking news," and so on anything that garners interest. And it's no secret that scandal attracts people's interest especially well. "Sex sells," as the saying goes, and so does violence, injustice, misconduct, and anything else outrageous. That's why scandalous content in mainstream media has increased over the years. That's also why Mary Media helps Allison Allegation: scandalous allegations attract people's interest, interested people watch advertisements, advertisements sell products, and it all makes Mary Media money.

However, fascinatingly, while the mainstream media profit from proliferating allegations, they bear little responsibility for doing it! Apparently, as long as the media mention that the scandal is an "allegation," they are relatively safe from legal repercussions.

This is because, in free-speech societies, people can voice opinions and unsubstantiated claims. Further, the media can always attest that they are not making the allegation; rather, they are just reporting it.

But, in truth, the media actually do help "make" the allegation by how they report it. You probably know that how you say something can convey greater meaning than what you say. For example, I could say, "I'm happy," but ifl scream it angrily, people are much more likely to believe I'm upset. With that in mind, try listening carefully to how mainstream media say the word "allegation" when reporting a story. Either they say it in a positive tone, as though it's something good, or they say it quickly, as though it's insignificant. They also use the word "allegation" or "alleged" instead of using terms such as "unsubstantiated claim" or "accusation without proof" to deemphasize that evidence is lacking. Even more cleverly, after the media make an allegation popular by broadcasting it far and wide, they then circle back later and broadcast how "so many" people are talking about it.

Further, they support people who make allegations by promoting them as courageous for "coming forward." These tactics get even more people interested and encourage others to make similar claims. Finally, the media then cite the increasing number of allegations and growing public outrage (that they helped create) as being "too numerous to be ignored" or as "evidence" of truth.

In a court of law, a man is considered innocent until proven guilty, but in the court of media-managed public opinion, a man "serially accused" of a scandal is guilty until proven innocent. In this way, an allegation does not require evidence to DAMN because, through media manipulation, it becomes its own evidence.

Thousands-even millions-of people can become organized against one man.

Likewise, the "evidence" and public perception of guilt created by Allison Allegation and Mary Media's synergy can become so prominent and powerful that our third ally, Arthur Authority, has a duty to step in.

And it's authority that really helps us put the "destroy" in DAMN!

Authority is defined as any person or organization that has the power to control, direct, punish, and so on, which is exactly the kind of power we need to DAMN. Examples include police, judges, bosses, human resource departments, boards of directors, teachers, professors, university councils, licensing and regulatory agencies, and so on. Ultimately, it's authority that plays the final role in condemning a man.

So what do we need to know about authority to DAMN? Well, to begin, it's important to understand that Arthur Authority is an artifact of patriarchy and chivalry. As "Daddy Knight," he takes pride in his role as guardian and savior, especially of the weak, mistreated, violated, and so on.

He strives to be the hero who saves the damsel in distress. In other words, authority caters to victims, and nothing gets Arthur Authority's attention more than a call to action to save victims.

To be considered a victim, or a damsel in distress, authority first needs to perceive you as weak. Surprisingly, a great illustration of this is how authorities usually relate to men in distress. Can you imagine what typically happens when a man walks into a police precinct and requests a restraining order against a woman?

Officers roll their eyes, and immediate dis-

belief ensues. T his is because they simply do not perceive a man to be weaker than a woman, and for that reason, they are unwilling to provide assistance. In contrast, in patriarchal societies, women are perceived as weak by default, and therefore deserving of help and protection in the eyes of authorities.

Second, for the weak to attain victim status, authorities also need to perceive them as harmed or violated.

In other words, authorities require a credible claim that a legal or an ethical standard has been broken in order to take action (because it's their duty to enforce standards).

As we now know, we can look to Allison Allegation to make the claim and to Mary Media to make it credible. Nevertheless, it's still important to emphasize that authority is most likely to help us DAMN in instances that entail an apparent violation of specific laws or codes of conduct-the more egregious, the better.

Examples are numerous, including rape, sexual harassment, discrimination, physical assault, child abuse, substance abuse, and dishonesty in its many forms (e.g., lying, cheating, fraud, etc.).

Also-and this works surprisingly well-keep in mind that with the media's help, allegations against authorities can be used to motivate authority to take action!

Just about any widespread allegation about an authority being remiss, ineffectual, or negligent in its "guardian and savior" role will suffice. For instance, a televised allegation about a company ignoring sexual harassment in the workplace is enough to motivate the company's human resources department to hunt the accused man and anyone who failed to report his scandalous behavior to HR!

Once authorities decree that there is a victim of a violation, they can take punitive actions against the perpetrator (i.e., "destroy" a man).

Punitive actions usually entail substantial loss, such as termination of employment/loss of income, loss of education or certification (e.g., dismissal from school or revocation of credentials), loss of social status or good reputation (e.g., public shame and humiliation), loss of financial savings (e.g., payment for legal settlements), and loss of freedom (e.g., imprisonment). In addition, the combined actions of Allison Allegation, Mary Media, and Arthur Authority generally result in ongoing loss or the loss of future opportunities. In this way, a man is truly damned.

With a smeared reputation or record of alleged misconduct, no one will want to be associated with him, no one will want to employ him, no one will want to help him, and no one will even believe him.

Further, the subsequent long-term stress frequently results in loss of physical and mental health.

When I say these methods can destroy a man, I genuinely mean it.

Moreover, these methods actually do destroy men, even powerful ones. There is no better testimony to how effective Allison Allegation, Mary Media, and Arthur Authority can be than the growing number of men they've destroyed (regardless of allegations being true or false).

Complete source

[gaypornshack1]

What Price do We Pay for Gay Marriage?

The Supreme Court’s decision affirming the proper to couple across the us may be a joyous moment for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans. Recognition of our equal dignity, and of our right to an equivalent legal protections straight couples enjoy, may be a civil rights milestone. But it could even be the last hurrah for the movement for gay freedom that began after war II.

But such unity of purpose comes at a price. Freedom to Marry, the advocacy group that has led the wedding equality movement, was in 2013 the most important recipient of cash from foundations that specialize in gay causes.

LGBT Rights Social Movements

Will even a fraction of the energy and money that are poured into the wedding fight be available to transgender people, homeless teenagers, victims of job discrimination, lesbian and gay refugees and asylum seekers, isolated gay elderly or other vulnerable members of our community? round the same time ny State legalized couple , in 2011, it had been slashing funds for services to homeless youth, who are disproportionately gay or transgender.

The movement for gay rights that began after war II was waged from society’s margins; its most outspoken proponents sought to overturn social convention, not join it. it had been not in the least inevitable that the movement would at some point coalesce around marriage.

In 1953, the primary year of its publication, the national gay magazine ONE dismissed the thought that gays might at some point be allowed to marry. “Rebels like we, demand freedom!” one article declared. “But actually we've a greater freedom now (sub rosa because it may be) than do heterosexuals and any change are going to be to lose a number of it reciprocally for respectability.”

Of course, this freedom was precarious; the subsequent year the l. a. postmaster refused to deliver a problem of the magazine on the grounds that it contained obscenity. Though the Supreme Court ruled within the magazine’s favor, many gay publications, businesses and bars were forced to shut within the 1950s and 1960s.

What About Black Gay People?

But more gay and transgender Americans are permanent outsiders. Some churches are doubling down on anti-gay rhetoric, which fuels family rejection and contributes to youth homelessness. Violence against transgender Americans is on the increase . Gay people in prison remain subject to rape and abuse. Rates of latest H.I.V. infections are rising among young black men.

Just as feminists learned after the 19th Amendment was ratified in 1920, a movement that throws most of its weight in pursuit of one policy may falter and stagnate when it achieves a powerful victory.

Gays must now devote to the fight for cover from discrimination an equivalent resourcefulness and energy with which we fought for the proper to marry. we should always confine mind that our struggle began as a fight against police harassment, and “Black Lives Matter” is our cause, too. Befitting its status because the 20th, not the primary , country to legalize couple , America should preach equality abroad humbly, acknowledging that it does so with the zeal of a convert.

The gay movement has stood for valuing all families — including those led by single parents, those with adopted children, and other configurations. it's stood for other ideas, too, that risk being lost during this moment’s pro-family turn: that intimacy, domesticity and caretaking don't always come packaged together; that marriage shouldn't be the sole thanks to protect one’s children, property and health; that having a family shouldn’t be a requirement for full citizenship; which conventional respectability shouldn’t be the sole route to social acceptance.

Many of the undergraduates at the school where I teach cannot remember a time when couple was unthinkable. except for most Americans alive today, to return out as gay meant accepting that we might never wed. It meant that we who decided to return out had little choice but to empathize with the excluded. We weren't , for obvious reasons, the marrying kind; that was a part of what made us special.

For some folks , marriage are going to be a ticket out of the margins. But it might be a tragedy if, vindicated by the Supreme Court, many folks proclaim a premature victory, overlooking those folks who are still overlooked , and lots of more people round the world for whom the search for basic recognition is far unsure . Betraying our history — forgetting what it's meant to be gay — would be a price too high to pay.

It is unfortunate that the movement’s two great victories of the last decade — the proper to serve openly within the military and therefore the refore the right to be married — have come as progress has stalled or reversed in numerous other areas of civil rights: equal pay and reproductive choice for women; housing and faculty segregation; police violence against minorities; and the prospects of an honest wage and a modicum of job and retirement security for all.

Conclusion

It is no accident that the one civil rights law that might likely apply to the best numbers of gays — a ban on discrimination employed and housing on the idea of sexual orientation or identity — continues to elude us. An anti-discrimination law creates substantial costs not just for the govt , which must enforce it, but also for companies , which must suits it; letting gays into military service and into the institution of marriage doesn't . Indeed, 379 employers, including many of the nation’s largest airlines, banks, health insurers and makers , filed a quick in support of couple , arguing that inconsistency in marriage laws created an onerous regulatory and financial burden and hurt their efforts to recruit talent.

After Massachusetts became the primary state to legalize couple , in 2003, a backlash of ballot initiatives and referendums banning such unions swept much of the country. In response, many lesbians and gay men who were tired of marrying forgot their doubts for the cause.