#sex and gender focused subsect

[gay-artificer]

Okay I might not have anyone here whos able to contribute to this question but, in the past, I have used 'Hermaphrodite" as a purely scientific word, with heavy stressing that it is not to be confused with the definition of intersex or used to describe actual human beings under any circumstances. This is in part because I've never actually found a good term to replace it, as a lot of suggested terms are... unfitting or somewhat mismatched in a strictly scientific/biological sense. A lot of the suggested terms from more worldbuilding-focused individuals are used more (or strictly) for plants, or at least in 99% of contexts tend to be used for plants or describe slightly more specific things than just "Animal with both sexual systems at once." Plants as a whole have like... god, like ten different terms for various sexual setups because they can be stupidly complicated in a way that you just aren't likely to see with most animals, which tend to be more simplistic (at least slightly, lmao). There's also the slightly more niche issue that a lot of suggested alternatives address the topic from the strict goal of 'replace the word' and thus haven't yet spread to cover some of the specific forms that can apply too, although this would probably be a pretty easy fix if everyone can agree on a term, but at least as it is I still seems like everyone is split 5 different ways on which to use. In terms of fiction/casual use I've generally been defaulting to duel-sexed, which isn't an actual used term as far as I know, just because its pretty self descriptive and also wouldn't have some fringe specific scientific use- which is an issue I'd think you'd only really be bothered by if you were dipped in a lot of discussions about fringe animal biology- which is where I think a lot of suggestions from individuals more on the intersex activism side tend to fall when the terms they raise clash against niche situational biology things. Ive also used non-gonochoristic which is both clunkier and less easily picked up by less familiar individuals, but is also basically strictly 'animal' in use. Recently I've seen cosexual, which admittedly I seemed to have missed because yet again its a term where 99% of its use is isolated to plants, although it seems like there is a handful of uses cases that applied it specifically to animals (But still ultimately fall back on the other term in order to clarify the specifics). At least in terms of recent suggestions its probably the one I think would be most likely to pick up traction as a replacement, but its definitely still mired in the problematic terminology (In that basically everything I've seen use it only commits to using it alongside the other term, rather than attempt to replace it) and also still heavily plant related. Although not to the degrees of some of the popular suggestions like 'monoecious' which is a fairly common and well known word- but its specific relationship with other plant terminology makes it feel ill-fitted for the role when its not going to mixed with plant bullshit. Seriously look at this:

I've also seen bigenital suggested recently, which I frankly think is a much worse/weaker word both in terms of just, terminology and also its finer application. And then a handful of terms that just very blatantly have too much crossover with other things. Also a dozen other words that I've seen floating around over the years, but they definitely exist as mostly peoples personal suggestions/solutions and not ones with any real traction. It's a problem I've seen repeatedly brought up, but have yet to actually see any sort of formal correction take hold. And I think part of that is almost certainly a bit of a clash between nerds trying to maintain the specific definitions of things in an area where theres already a lot of confusing overlap, Activists who rightfully want get things changed but aren't clued in as hard to more niche scientific terminology concerns like "This is specifically for plants who have a specific type of reproduction system organization with their flowers, and thus doesn't quiet work for something that doesn't have multiple sets of genitals in different arrangements as most animals do" and well meaning scientists who want to avoid the word and try using alternatives but ultimately fall back on the one people know and that they know scientifically describes the thing they want to describe even if it also carries a historically negative connotation with it. Which is where I'm realizing I've kinda been sitting, because things really haven't shifted once you sit down and read the stuff that gets put out, and unlike some... other words its specific use case is a bit less easily swapped out with synonyms. So you just fall back in on the less ideal but accepted within the bubble youre working in term. So I guess the question is, has anyone here actually seen something make some ground past just sort of 'this would be a nice replacement'? I'd frankly love if I've just somehow missed a big shift in language in the scientific community, but so often I just see people claim that one term is the new standard when its like... standard in that its used heavily in botany, and there generally is a split between botany and zoology in terms of terminology that people would want to maintain. (God don't let anyone tell you 'male and female' are the only options or bring up that stupid 'its 1st grade biology' bullshit. The world is so stupidly complicated and this would not be an issue if it was so simple but unfortunately we need terminology for all the weird shit exclusively found in three species of cactus) Anyway, I typed this whole thing up kinda just to see if anyone else had yet more terms they've seen around or even used actually properly in a scientific paper, and its a whole mess thats been bothering me with specbio for years and at the end of typing this I'm honestly just hoping more that cosexed/cosexual catches on. I think it forms a nice trifecta with perisexed/intersexed/cosexed. And hey, maybe it has caught on more in the sex and gender side of things (let me know if so, if you happen to be more familiar with that) cause I certainly am more clued in to the non-human biology stuff which is where you get weird things one single species of rose has decided to do we now have to name. On a lighter note. God I hate plants. They give me headaches.

[transmascpolls]

I know that transgender polls are covered by @transgenderpolls but I thought it still might be fun to have a transmasc focused blog. This is for polls for everyone on the transmasc spectrum (or specific subsections of people on the transmasc spectrum) or for comparison between transmasc and non-transmasc folks. Please try to avoid femininely gendered language in any polls directed generally at transmascs.

I’m a nonbinary trans guy. I also run @nonbinarymlm

If no one submits polls then I’ll create them. I have the right to reject polls that I deem inappropriate. If you harass people or are a bigot I will block you.

FAQ after break

- Do you have to be trans masculine to submit polls?

No. That would be an impossible rule to enforce and there are legit reasons why others might want to do polls for transmascs.

- Are repeat polls allowed?

Only after four months. If the original poll was posted four or more months ago, then sure. I feel at that point this blog/tumblr will have changed enough for the poll to potentially reach different people and get different results. It’ll be tagged “repeat poll”. So before submitting a poll, check if anything really similar has been submitted in the past four months.

- Will you take “is X identity / X term valid” polls?

No, they’re not super interesting and likely to incite useless discourse that can even be bigoted. Topics about how people identify or lived experiences are more interesting to me anyway.

- Will you tag triggering topics?

I can’t tag all of them, but I will tag “genital mention”, “dysphoria mention”, “sex mention”, “transphobia”, “SA mention”, and “transphobic violence” for polls that mention those topics. If there’s another trigger you’d like me to tag, ask me directly and I will if I can.

- What counts as femininely gendered language?

Well, “feminine”, “girly”, “womanly”, etc. If you’re making a poll specifically for transmascs who self-identify with that language (like women who also identify as transmasculine) then that’s fine, but don’t apply it to transmascs in general or arbitrary groups of transmascs. Also, please use direct language to refer to body parts instead of stuff like “female body”, which doesn’t even really mean anything.

- Why does this blog exist?

For fun and community.

[torchship-rpg]

Dev Diary 8 - Identities: Terrans & Lunars

Happy International Moon Day! Torchship is set 200 years after Neil Armstrong first set foot on the moon, with history diverging when Alexei Leonov followed him a few days later, keeping the space race hot through moon bases, Mars, and beyond. A bit like For All Mankind, if everyone was a bit less of a complete drama queen.

In celebration of the incredibly cool feat of somehow putting boots on another world, we’re going to be focusing today’s Dev Diary on the two human Identities which descend directly from the event; the Terrans who went there and the Lunars who stayed.

Terrans

We touched on Terrans in Dev Diary 2, as an example for how even the most ‘standard’ of human identities still has a lot of interesting Traits to draw from. Still, Terrans are very much the ‘default’ human identity, being the most populous human group. They’re called Terrans because they got upset about everyone calling them Earthlings, and it had a nice symmetry with Lunars.

Even before we get into the specific sub-Identities, each Identity is divided into a bunch of subsections which dive into various details about the group; where they live, what the environment is like, and what specific biological or genetic details you might need to know. Any of these can come with Traits; the Biology one is where aliens get their signature features, and humans get the developmental and genetic distinctions that set them apart.

(As an aside, these Identity entries are big. They’re not just a couple of paragraphs, they’re thousands of words about history, culture, and biology. Sometimes I get distracted and go on for four paragraphs about the Zinovian biological and cultural concept of sex and gender. Sorry not sorry.)

For Terrans, our Biology section includes our first two Traits. As mentioned last time, 1g is unusually high for humanoid life in the setting; most other species evolved at around half to maybe three quarters of that, and the various spacers will have grown up under even less.

This means that Terrans are a great fit for the Heavyworlder trait, which is one of the Gravity traits. This gives you better tolerance for high Gs (important when you’ve got to work on your spacecraft while under thrust) in exchange for worse penalties in 0g. Compared to a spacer who could spacewalk before they could normal-walk, you’re going to come off clumsy in freefall. You also get a bonus to Physical Instrument, the cert used for basic physical strength and endurance, and do more damage in melee.

The other Terran biological Trait is Baseliner. An assumption underlying every biological Identity is that unless we say otherwise, there’s genetic engineering afoot, either ongoing or in the species' past. While some of this is awful Gattaca-style eugenics nonsense, for Torchship’s humanity this has mostly been just some tidying up. Evolution settles for a lot of ‘good-enough’ solutions, so with a little bit of targeted editing we can do stuff like prevent cells from hoarding molecules they’ll never use, or use a chemical that’s actually good at the job instead of one that the body just had lying around.

Baseliner is the Trait where we say otherwise. You pretty much can’t survive off Earth without some genetic engineering; turns out even a pretty small reduction in gravity long-term is going to be bad for your heart, nerves, muscles, bones… your everything, basically. But if you and your family have always lived on Earth, you could well have gone the last hundred years without genetic editing. 

The downside is that it costs more XP to upgrade Physical Instrument and you take extra consequences from different levels of gravity, but on the upside you have an extra ten minutes in low Oxygen before consequences start setting in, and you have a higher tolerance for drugs and poisons. You might not be peak human performance, but all those redundancies can come in handy.

Once we’re done with biology, we move into the sub-Identities, which are specific regions or subcultures. Right now Terrans only have two; rural and urban. (I’ve played around with some others but I haven’t been happy with anything yet, send in your suggestions!). Urban Terrans live in the dense, futuristic megacities that dot future Earth, in communal archeologies that are like self-contained villages. Theirs is a life of beautiful buildings, abundant greenery, a different kind of library for everything, and a joyous excess of monorails. It’s everything you could have wanted from Usborne’s Book of Future Cities (1979) come to life.

Urban Terrans get recommended the following Traits; Polyglot (to get across the cosmopolitan nature of the cities), Well-Connected (to show your closeness to the Star Union’s bureaucracy), Divergent (because urban Terrans are exactly the sort of people who do recreational genetic modifications), and Communal Spirit, a trait which boosts the effectiveness of working together. This is a common Trait for many Human identities; it’s pretty much the one that models prosocial production practices in action. 

The Rural Terran trait represents a much smaller proportion of the population. These are the mix of farmers, ecologists, and indigenous groups piecing the planet back together after a close brush with climate change. Outside of lithium, there’s not a lot of on-world mining anymore (space mining has made it uneconomical) so this is mostly agriculture. These communities are relatively isolated, bypassed by the high-speed trains connecting Earth’s cities; the saying goes that Mars is closer to the cities than the farms are.

Rural Terrans get these Traits suggested: Biome Specialist (representing a familiarity in whatever regional ecology you grew up in), Stiff Upper Lip (farm work tends to toughen you up), Natural Esper (a lot of psychics try to get away from the crowded cities), and Trusting, a trait that rewards you for helping others, but makes you more vulnerable to manipulation and makes it stressful to initiate violence.

Finally, at the end of each Identity is a section dedicated to how this group fits into Star Patrol, and how their presence can result in extra Traits through social interaction with other groups. Here, the privileged, ‘default’, often somewhat thoughtless Terrans are recommended the Imposing trait, which gives you some bonuses for being intimidating, but makes it a little harder to get people’s trust. It also does a decent job representing how Terrans are simply more heavily built than anyone else in the Sol system; when you’re comparing to tiny Martians and spindly Spacers, Terrans are collectively a bunch of Conans the Barbarian. 

You grew up somewhere where air is free and water falls from the sky, and people are understandably sometimes hesitant to correct your ignorance because you’re three times stronger than they are. Terrans often have some growing up to do as they realise how they come off to others.

Lunars

In Torchship’s world, there have been moon bases since the early 70s, and people have lived on the moon full-time since the early 2000s. The Soviet moon base program eventually withdrew due to budget problems, leaving the ever-increasing network of American bases the sole full-time real estate on the moon. In the 2040s, Armstrong City took one look at the unfolding disaster that was the collapse of American capitalism and seceded. Playing up its neutrality, it eventually became the de jure capital of the Solar Union and, now, the Star Union, though in actuality this is mostly symbolic.

This is because living on the moon is genuinely very difficult. The gravity is just 16% of what it is on Earth, it’s airless, and there’s no atmosphere to stop the radiation. When people started living there, its only selling point at all was being closer to Earth than Mars was.

Now that people do live there, though, in a vast underground city, there turns out to be a second advantage. The Moon is very rich in mineral resources and very poor in biospheres you might destroy by aggressively mining them, and it’s incredibly cheap to get things to lunar orbit. This has ended up making the moon the industrial powerhouse of the Star Union.

Lunars are living in the most extreme conditions of any of the human Identities, which is reflected in their Biology Traits. Like Spacers, they get Freefaller, a gravity trait that is in most ways an inverse of the Heavyworlder trait. They might not actually be living in freefall, but the gravity is so low it might not make a difference. The very low gravity also means they are recommended Medical Dependency; humans simply were not meant to grow up in these conditions. Even with genetic modifications, some ongoing medical treatment for bone density or nerve issues, arising from being seven feet tall and effectively 30 pounds, is to be expected. Finally, Lunars are recommended the Wireless Brain Uplink Trait, an extension of the implanted medical monitors which were once standard on US moon bases for long-term survival.

Lunars also only have two sub-identities. The first are the Mazedwellers, those who live in Armstrong City itself. Armstrong City is built out of the subterranean mines of Luna, using the thick crust of the planet to protect against solar radiation. This makes the city a twisting, sprawling web deep under the surface, where space is at an absolute premium even beyond what Spacers experience. To live in these conditions but still contribute your industrial might to the Union, your town doubles as a factory floor, converting back and forth every day.

This gives Lunars a distinct identity in their work ethic; while everyone else can be more content working at their own pace, on Luna the faster you get the job done the faster you get your living room back. Your recommended Traits are Claustrophile (giving you a bonus in a space suit but mild agoraphobia), Driven (representing this unusual work ethic), and Shifting Gears, a trait which lets you have two sets of Personality Impulses, in this case representing the strict work-life divide that is at the centre of Lunar culture.

The other Lunar sub-identity is being a Yardworker. The Lunar Yards are the reason that humanity won the big space war; turns out running a slower-than-light multiplanetary civilisation requires an absolutely ludicrous number of spacecraft, so Lunars built an absolutely enormous and ever-expanding space station to do that with, using a giant railgun to shoot raw materials up to it and commuting every day with short-hop shuttles. In the post-FTL era, the sheer scale of the Lunar Yards means humanity can produce an almost comedic surplus. During the war, Lunars couldn’t serve in Star Patrol (see the end of the dev diary for why), so people started living on the Yards to make as many rockets as possible instead as a way of contributing.

Being a Yardworker is a prestigious job for a Lunar, and also a competitive one. Work never slows down, six shifts twenty-four hours a day. For this reason, Yardworkers share the Driven and Claustrophile Traits with their Mazedweller counterparts, as they aren’t that divergent. They gain the Voidborn trait (which gives bonuses for making repairs, cheaper upgrades to the Cosmonaut cert, and stress when your rocket is experiencing shortages) and the Cultural Tool trait, which gives you a bonus 4d6-era item you can carry atop the normal inventory. For Lunars, that’s your Yarkworker’s Marker, the thick-nibbed, vacuum-writing pen workers carry to leave each other vital notes about problems that could potentially kill them and/or draw dicks on the spaceship. The Yardworker’s Marker and all the little notes that crews would find in their spacecraft developed a mythology, which is why now it’s as much a badge of honour as a practical tool.

Finally, the Lunars in Star Patrol section touches on an important consequence of Lunar biology; being a Lunar was for life up until shockingly recently. They couldn’t even survive something as tame as Martian gravity even a few decades ago, which meant they could never visit Earth and couldn’t serve in Solar Patrol because their hearts couldn’t take the acceleration. This only changed in the past few decades in the form of an intense, and often rather painful, two-year series of treatments and acclimation.

This comes with two suggested Traits. The first is Augment, the trait we use to represent attempts at genetic engineering that go above and beyond the normal evolutionary cleanup, which can represent some of the extreme intervention and above-average effects it might have had. The other is Stiff Upper Lip, as per Rural Terrans, representing the adjusted pain tolerances you’re going to develop after undergoing something like that.

As you can see, Trait overlap is pretty common in these things, and of course these are just suggested Traits. Despite all the differences, everyone is a lot alike in most ways.

[calcitedraws]

Fen Waller NSFW ALPHABET

I'm going to use ‘penis’ and ‘vagina’ as merely terms for genitalia and not as a means of gender. Canonically, Fen has no bio gender assigned, so I'll just add subsections based on the genitalia you hc them as

A = Aftercare (what they’re like after sex)

Very cuddly! I think if you'd allow it they'd either lay on top of you or have you lay on top of them after aftercare. 

If Fen takes a more submissive role, they'll likely just flop over and fall asleep after some cuddles. I think Fen has some level of standards if you have more intense forms of sex, and would expect the bare minimum (handing them water and telling them they did a good job)

If Fen takes a more dominant role, they take a very active role in aftercare. If it's more vanilla sex, they'd likely cuddle up with you and probably get a damp washcloth to clean any fluids that were shared. Definitely gives you at least a little bit of praise afterwards; tells you how good you did, how much they love you. I don't think Fen would willingly do anything to hurt you unless you outright begged them to, so you'll be doted on afterwards. Massages if you say your sore, ice packs if you two get too crazy. 

Either way, I think Fen is very much a water (or Gatorade if you two did something more intense) and snack type of person. Will try to crawl under your skin if you don't stop them.

B = Body part (their favorite body part of theirs and also their partner’s)

They can't pick what part of you they like best! No, seriously I can't think what part of their partner Fen would like best. They can't stop focusing on all of your body, but Fen is very fond of your skin. Leaving hickeys, feeling your bare skin against their own, any marks like scars, moles, freckles, etc just make Fen go a little feral. 

Fen likes their hands, hands just so versatile and useful. Getting them off, getting you off, feeling you, holding you, Fen loves being able to do these things.

C = Cum (anything to do with cum, basically)

Fen is downright nasty with your cum (doesn't matter your genitalia). If they're giving oral they are swallowing it all with a grateful moan as if it's a five star dinner. 

If you have a penis, Fen is going to try to get you to cum in them. If you insist on a condom, Fen will 100% plan to retrieve it and empty the contents into their coffee. Like I said, they're a freak. 

If you have a vagina and they have a penis, Fen can and will beg to cum inside. Of course if you say no, they'll respect it. But if you let them, the sight of their cum leaking out of you will get them hard again in an instant. They're the type to give you oral after cumming inside of you several times. 

If you both have vaginas, Fen is into the fluids mixing. Not much else to say, except they'll still want to give you oral after making you orgasm several times. 

D = Dirty secret (pretty self explanatory, a dirty secret of theirs)

Fen has a lot of fantasies they'd rather die than tell you: the idea of you carving them open to see their innards is probably the one they'd consider the most ‘dirty’. 

They also really want to consume your blood, but wouldn't because they don't like you being hurt by their actions. But if they ever accidentally bit you mid-sex and made you bleed, they'd cum instantly. 

They also keep your old sex toys in their shrine and probably use them on themself. They also keep your dirty underwear in their shrine and jerk off to the smells. 

They've been really horny for you for a very long time, but they don't want you knowing during the ‘wooing’ phase in case it makes you feel pressured or scares you. 

E = Experience (how experienced are they? do they know what they’re doing?)

Zero hands-on experience but they've read hours and hours of sex ‘tips and tricks’ articles and regularly masturbate. So theyre not going in blind, but they aren't going in knowing what to do on the first try. They'd know the general roadmap of your genitalia, well enough to feel confident going in on the first try.

F = Favorite position (this goes without saying)

In general, they love missionary or mating press. Something about being able to see you and every twitch of your face draws Fen in. 

If their being more dominant, Fen will choose options that are more easy on your body, most likely where you're laying on your back and they do most of the work. 

If they're being more submissive, whatever position you fold them into will have their head spinning. Fen is flexible enough to be folded in half if you need them to be.

G = Goofy (are they more serious in the moment? are they humorous? etc.)

Fen isn't too serious about it. If something funny happens like they fall off the bed or a small blunder occurs, they'll probably chuckle before getting back to business. 

H = Hair (how well groomed are they? does the carpet match the drapes? etc.)

Has a nice, healthy patch of hair. Fen keeps it trimmed but they wouldn't shave unless you asked. Maybe slightly darker than the hair on their head but the curtains match the drapes.

I = Intimacy (how are they during the moment? The romantic aspect)

Fen prefers a heavily romantic atmosphere. Kissing, staring into your eyes, these are things that make them feel connected to you. Fen craves the connection between you more than anything. I think if they gave you oral, they'd hold your hand while doing it. 

J = Jack off (masturbation headcanon)

Has a preference against using toys on them self. They have nothing against it, it's just not their preference. If they gained access to any of your sex toys, they'd likely use them religiously. 

I think Fen would masterbate somewhere from one to four times a week regardless of if you're in the house or not. They can do it quietly so you'll likely never know. Surprise! They can only masterbate to the idea of you. In the early days they tried to find porn with actors/actresses that looked like you somewhat but it's stopped doing something for them a long time ago. If you did porn before being taken by Fen, they have a folder of every piece of porn they could get their hands on with you in it, categorized and very organized.

K = Kink (one or more of their kinks)

Edging, overstimulation, lingerie, praise (giving and receiving), degradation (receving but it can't be too mean), marking, bondage (specifically something like shibari), and consuming your blood and sexual fluids.

L = Location (favorite places to do the do)

Fens bed is their favorite. But they're open to wherever when the mood strikes, over the counter, on the couch, they're not incredibly picky. There's places they'll never do it, like outside the house or in public. I think they might have sex on the porch if you two get steamy enough beforehand. 

M = Motivation (what turns them on, gets them going)

You showing reciprocation to any advances and making advances of your own. Fen hates the idea of weaseling you into sex, so if you show them you want it too, they keep excited pretty quickly. 

Also anything vaguely suggestive, even if you don't mean it. Bending over, eating a Popsicle, stretching out on the couch so a bit of your stomach shows, Fen gets turned on easily but often reigns themself in before it happens. 

N = No (something they wouldn’t do, turn offs)

Nothing that causes anything permanent or painful (aside from pregnancy.) Fen wouldn't ever amputate you, seeing it as a huge betrayal. They also get turned off by petplay and ageplay specially. I think they would enjoy a collar but nothing else from petplay. Scat and piss are hard limits, as well as degrading them a bit too harshly and cnc. 

If you called someone else's name during sex they'd just pause for a moment, and then get up and leave without a word (probably to cry in another room). 

O = Oral (preference in giving or receiving, skill, etc.)

Fen picks up very quickly what you like. They prefer giving, but if you offered them they'd be happy as a clam at high tide. If you have trouble reaching an orgasm Fen will spend as long as both of you need. Will beg you go sit on their face. 

P = Pace (are they fast and rough? slow and sensual? etc.)

I think Fen topping will default to slow and sensual, but firm. If you whip them into a frenzy, they'll blow your back out and feel so bad about it after.

If Fen bottoms, they generally prefer slow and sensual, but if you rail them, they'll take it happily. 

Q = Quickie (their opinions on quickies, how often, etc.)

Fen isn't fond of quickies, but they'll participate. If you two stop in the middle of something to have sex and then go back to that activity, then their quite happy. But if you try to have sex and then leave them alone for a longer period of time than to feed the cats if the time rolls around or to grab water, then they get heartbroken. Fen is a very romantic and sensitive person.

R = Risk (are they game to experiment? do they take risks? etc.)

Not anything too dangerous. They'll try anything once, but they prefer the more vanilla side of sex. Not to say they can't be kinky, but I doubt they'll want a sex swing or something like that. 

S = Stamina (how many rounds can they go for? how long do they last?)

Longer than their partner, the comfort zone sits between 2 to 3 rounds with around 5 to 10 minutes breaks between but if you only ever want one round then they're still very happy. They don't want to have sex every day, however. 

T = Toys (do they own toys? do they use them? on a partner or themselves?)

Fen sees toys as tools and also somehow like rivals depending on how their used. They get jealous when you masterbate but understand that you'll want to do it alone sometimes. They haven't bought any toys for themself. 

U = Unfair (how much they like to tease)

A little bit, but mostly in a playful way. They want to get you flustered and rile you up a little bit, so it's more like flirting with a bit of teasing sometimes. They don't tease much during sex, but they might edge you once or twice if their in the mood while purring about how desperate you look. But it's never meant as an insult or degradation they just… feel a certain way about it.

V = Volume (how loud they are, what sounds they make, etc.)

Fen starts quiet and ends loud. They're also a talker during the start of sex but it dwindles into whines and moans by the end. They just end up feeling so good they can't stop any noises that come out.

W = Wild card (a random headcanon for the character)

They love leaving hickeys all over your neck and shoulders, not only as a sign of ownership but also because these are very vulnerable parts of your body. Being let so close to one of the most vulnerable parts of you is exhilarating for Fen. They can smell you, feel you moan, feel your every breath…

Seeing you with their mark afterwards just… brings such a feeling of contentment, a mark of how you want to stay here with them. 

X = X-ray (let’s see what’s going on under those clothes)

Their public hair is neatly trimmed but not shaved, a nice healthy patch of thick hair that's only a shade or two darker than the hair on their head. Maybe a happy trail, too. I'll leave it to you to choose what their genitalia looks like. 

Y = Yearning (how high is their sex drive?)

They have a solid sex drive. They don't want to have sex every day, but their ideal is 1-4 times a week. If you have a lower sex drive, they'll just masterbate to counterbalance it and won't make a fuss. 

Z = Zzz (how quickly they fall asleep afterwards)

Depends on how hard and long you two went. If it's an intense session, after getting you both water Fen will likely fall asleep quickly without meaning to. However if it's more of a quickie, they'll be alert and awake. 

[pleasureactivism]

An Annotated Playlist to Accompany Your Reading of Pleasure Activism

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2eoQwDJipqb2BpIZqCIscQ?si=bRg4s4uhSqOXw02Ai2Pc2Q

In Section Three: A Circle of Sex, there is an essay, a compilation of interviews, titled “The Highs, Lows, and Blows of Casual Sex.” Upon reading this title, I immediately thought of one of my favorite songs at the moment, “High Highs to Low Lows” by Lolo Zouaï. I put this song on while I read this essay, and while not directly about sex, the concept of peaks and valleys really resonated with the text. “High Highs and Low Lows” set the mood for me to engage with “The Highs, Lows, and Blows of Casual Sex,” not just because of the lyrics but also the multidimensional sound and authenticity and vulnerability of Zouaï’s voice. Singing in both English and French, she covers so many deeply human feelings, from sexy to vulnerable, cocky to depressed, sensual to silly. Intentionally pairing this song with this reading (instead of just putting a random playlist on shuffle) gave me the idea of creating a playlist- this book needs a soundtrack, which I have attempted to create below. 

A compilation of R&B, hip hop, pop, Latinx music and some 1970s Black feminist icons (namely, Nina Simone and Diana Ross), most of these songs are performed by people that identify as women of color, partly because that is in line with Pleasure Acitivism which “center[s] the experiences of Black women” and partly because that is what I often find myself listening to. However, as was true for adrienne maree brown and her book, this soundtrack “includes a few voices that are not Black or women-identified but that I trust in the human experience of finding pleasure beyond oppression” (brown 5). This playlist was inspired by and accompanied much of my reading of much of Pleasure Activism, shifting and growing as I read, enhancing the experience and adding meaning to both the text and the music. The songs in the soundtrack can be listened to while reading any section of the book, but there are some that deal directly with themes of the book, and for those I have identified a “pairing,” or specific essay or section that I recommend pairing with that song. The songs on the soundtrack are in the order of the recommended paired sections. It should be noted that given the time frame of this project and the fact that I am simultaneously finishing up my undergraduate senior thesis, I was only able to annotate a select few of the songs on the playlist, but in no way are the songs that are not described any less important, relevant, or magical. 

Oh My God by Sevdaliza 

Pairing: “The Legacy of ‘Uses of the Erotic,’ A Conversation with Cara Page” OR the Introduction to Section One, “Who Taught You to Feel Good?”

I originally added this song to the playlist because of its sound, described in one article as “a blend of trip-hop, avant pop, and electronica,” and its lyrics about self-discovery, realization, hope and dreams (Ingvaldsen 2020). Savdalize asks “Who should I be?” and notes that “I view myself from above/Roamin’ in the fields of hope/Will it make or break me/As my dreams are heavy, they outweigh me.” These comments about her exploration of self and the intensity of her dreams initially led to its inclusion on the playlist. However, after finding an interview with Sevdaliza, I realized just how crucial this song is for Pleasure Activism’s soundtrack. She is Iranian Dutch and a refugee who, according to the interview, “acnkowledg[es] the oppressive regimes and institutions of the world in an effort to reflect peace and solidarity through her aural artform” (Ingvaldsen 2020). In the interview, Sevdaliza says she “believe[s] in collective energy,” a concept not only explored in Pleasure Activism but also in our course throughout the semester. Additionally, she says that “heritage stands for a gift of profound insight, wisdom, and love. My heritage to me is like an inner-oracle. The one who knows. It is a mesmerizing voice, that becomes more clear as I am close to my authentic self. My heritage also connects me with deep feminine instincts; the wise woman within” (Ingvaldsen 2020). This connection to her heritage and ancestors reminded me of brown’s exploration of her own “personal pleasure lineage” and encouragement that her readers do the same (brown 21). Sevdaliza says, “our voices are meant to be heard, our stories meant to be shared,” a concept embodid by brown in Pleasure Activism. 

Feeling Good by Nina Simone 

Pairing: “The Sweetness of Salt, by Alexis Pauline Gumbs”

Video by India.Arie

Pairing: “Pussy Power, by Favianna Rodriguez”

Formation by Beyoncé

Pairing: “Wherein I Write about Sex” OR “The Pleasure of Living at the Same Time as Beyoncé Giselle Knowles-Carter”

“High Highs to Low Lows” by Lolo Zouaï

Pairing: “The Highs, Lows, and Blows of Casual Sex”

How Deep Is Your Love (feat. Yebba) by PJ Morton 

Pairing: “Feelmore, A Conversation with Nenna Joiner”

Girls Need Love (with Drake)- Remix by Summer Walker

Pairing: “Liberating Your Fantasies” or “The Highs, Lows, and Blows of Casual Sex”

Girls Need Love is a seductive, passionate, and honest piece in which Walker creates a personal narrative about her desires for sex and love while also grappling with the double standard that “girls” can’t be sexually liberated. She pushes back against the societal norms that “girls can’t never say they want it/girls can’t never say how/girls can’t never say they need it/girls can’t even say now.” She also stresses that her desire for casual sex is okay, a topic which brown analyzes in Highs, Lows, and Blows of Casual Sex” (“I don’t need a reason baby/Please don’t get in your feelings”). Another soulful R&B track, this song has a simple production with a main focus on the vocals. 

BROWN SKIN GIRL (feat Blue Ivy Carter) by Beyoncé, Saint Jhn, Wizkid 

Pairing: “The Pleasure of Living at the Same Time as Beyoncé Giselle Knowles-Carter” OR “Wherein I Write about Sex” OR “Black Woman Wildness by Junauda Petrus”

Q.U.E.E.N. (feat. Erykah Badu) by Janelle Monáe

Pairing: “Fly as Hell, A Conversation with Sonya Renee Taylor”

Multi-Love by Unknown Mortal Orchestra

Pairing: “On Nonmonogamy” 

Multi-Love is a song about polyamory, full of intimacy, vulnerability, and even discomfort and torment. Despite these intense feelings that are on display in Ruban Nielson’s (the lead singer’s) voice and in the lyrics, the instrumental aspect of the song is lighter and catchy, consisting of an upbeat keyboard tune and light, quick drum beats. These components come together to create a non-pretentious, spiritual, futuristic song that touches on many of the same topics as Pleasure Activism. For example, he talks about god, asking, “who is your god? Where is she?” Similarly, adrienne maree brown said that she “think[s] a lot about what god is, how god is, and where we are relating to and running from and surrendering to god” (brown 7). He sings about transitioning between single-love and multi-love (“We were one, then become three”), which reminded me of brown’s comments that “nonmonogamy tends to suit [her] best, even if [she is] occasionally focused on one lover” and her further analysis of multi-love in the subsection “On Nonmonogamy” (brown 8, 409). And finally, he talks about alludes to the non-binaryness of gender: “she doesn't want to be a man or a woman” (though the use of the pronoun “she” is somewhat troubling in this case). All in all, this song that is somehow at once crystal clear and mysteriously muffled belongs on the soundtrack because of its soulful, groovy nature, relevant lyricism and personal discovery about love, spirituality, vulnerability, and meaning. As a side note, I also felt like it fits well because Ruban Nielson’s delivery has been compared to that of Prince’s, who brown dedicates the book to. 

The Other Woman by Nina Simone

Pairing: “Being Second”

Golden by Jill Scott

I’m Coming Out by Diana Ross

Universe by Ambar Lucid

La Negra Tiene Tumbao by Celia Cruz

Pairing: “On Fear, Shame, Death, and Humor, A Conversation between the Rocca Family and Zizi” OR “On the Pleasures of Wardrobe, A Conversation with Maori Karmael Holmes”

Beyond being an absolute Afro-Cuban and Latin music icon, and the Queen of Salsa, Celia Cruz is known for her fashion style; she always had on colorful wigs, sequins, crazy high heels, and incredible makeup (for this reason her song is paired with “On the Pleasures of Wardrobe”). This song was chosen because of its multifaceted nature; it spans the genres of jazz, salsa, reggae, and hip hop. She talks about the style, attitude, swag and sexiness of a black woman (in Spanish). Igniting the spark of pride in Latinx and Black identities for many, “La Negra Tiene Tumbao” is a timeless anthem about being proud of who you are, embracing blackness, and never moving out of the way for anybody. 

Pelo Suelto by Gloria Trevi 

The Pleasure Principle by Janet Jackson

February 3rd by Jorja Smith

Satisfaction Guaranteed by Junglepussy

This song is lush and deep as it envelopes you into its mesmerizing tune. Junglepussy’s slow, intense words of confidence and encouragement to feel fully, both spiritually and physically, wash over the listener like a wave (“Yeah, I’m the brown hottie with the body, looking like Rum Spice… Relax, as the aura ease you/In the flesh, let the physical please you”). 

Soul Liberator by Kraak and Smaak feat. Sanguita

Feeling Myself by Nicki Minaj feat. Beyoncé

Cranes in the Sky by Solange 

Hurry by Teyana Taylor feat. Kanye 

Mujer Latina by Thalía

A Quién Le Importa by Thalía

I’m Every Woman by Whitney Houston 

                                                           Works Cited

Ingvaldsen, Torsten. “Sevdaliza Returns With New Protest Song ‘Oh My God.’” HYPEBEAST, HYPEBEAST, 30 Jan. 2020, hypebeast.com/2020/1/sevdaliza-oh-my-god-single-stream-premiere.

LS

[theworldbrewery]

Hot Takes: Elves

“When an elven soul returns to Arvandor, it is adopted by the other gods of the Seldarine and given respite from the world for a time, during which it is left alone to ponder its creator’s disappointment.” -Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes, p 36

I have three sourcebooks in front of me, and all of them are trash.

Elf lore has gotten more fucked up with every new release, and WotC seem to just be digging themselves deeper.

The drow and Lolth

Narrow depictions of ethereal beauty

Relationships with other races, especially orcs

At the root of this is the rather uncomfortable blend of religious themes and racial predestination found in Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes.

Disclaimer: I don’t want to suggest that all the official elf lore is bad. I want to suggest that all the official race lore is bad, actually.

Let’s dig in. Scroll to the bottom of the post if you wanna skip all the bad stuff WotC already wrote about elves.

“[The drow] are infamous for their cruelty, evilness, and desire to dominate.”  -Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide, p. 107

“To most, [drow] are a race of demon-worshipping marauders [...] emerging only on the blackest nights to pillage and slaughter the surface dwellers they despise.” -Player’s Handbook, p. 24

“The surface elves’ attitude toward murder [...] is carried to the extreme by the drow, who have elevated the assassination of both enemies and friends to an art and who consider killing to be just another tool for resolving disputes and clearing the way for social advancement.” -Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes, p. 40-41

So all this is bad. We’re gonna throw all this out in a hot sec, but I’m quickly going to discuss why the lore looks like this in case someone is unfamiliar with it:

basically, the creator of All Elves, Corellon, had a descendant goddess named Lolth, who apparently claimed that elves could attain superiority over other races, had a major falling-out with Corellon, and her followers went with her into exile and became the drow. Also in Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes, the elves were revealed to be trapped in a cycle of reincarnation where they spent an undetermined period of time dead, alone, and left to contemplate how disappointed Corellon was in them for agreeing with Lolth even a little bit. For some reason, this reincarnation cycle is presented as a good thing... somehow. (this is why elves have a blase reaction to murder, since the deceased will just be reborn later, and why the drow seem to be just fine with killing recklessly.)

This all could be just fine! Except drow are conspicuously the darkest-skinned subrace of elves, and also the one most aligned with a ‘matriarchal’ society. It’s worth pointing out that Corellon is a nonbinary god, but also that the elves “viewed Corellon as their father, the one who had sired them, and Lolth as their mother, the one who set them on the path to their destiny” (p. 36 of MToF). So not only is Corellon being forced into a cisnormative creator narrative, but the comparative “woman” power is being characterized with cruelty and violence. So there’s a lot going on with ‘innate’ savagery and race.

So we’re just gonna throw all that out, because it sucks. It’s got signficant racist implications of inherent violence in racial groups. Sure, WotC tries to retcon it from an in-born racial trait to a cultural one, but it still preys on the concepts of racial essentialism, whether biological or cultural, and fuck that noise. 

“Usually, true elves were a naturally slender and athletic race. Elves had a similar range of complexions to humans, with wood elves typically coppery or pale skinned and wild elves having darker pigmentation.”

“[Elves] live in places of ethereal beauty, in the midst of ancient forests or in silvery spires [...] Elves love nature and magic, art and artistry, music and poetry, and the good things of the world.” -Player’s Handbook, p. 21

Moving on from the drow, official lore gives the impression of elves as a whole as graceful, thin, and more ‘white.’ The quote above from the Forgotten Realms wiki (which is often used for lore reference) asserts that “wild” elves have “darker pigmentation”--a frankly horrifying example of the same problem with the drow characterization equating savagery, or lack of civilization, with dark skin colors. It’s... bad. It looks bad and it is bad.

Furthermore, the ‘good’ elves (and this itself has to be interrogated) are “naturally slender and athletic,” and constantly being characterized as beautiful. We’re equating elves with thinness and apparent youthfulness--you’ll never hear about the beauty of gnomes, for example, who are just as long-lived but who continue to age at a human-ish rate (making them extremely old-looking by the end of their lifespan). Looking young, thin, and athletic combined with the goodness, grace, and artistic nature of elves creates 1) a very human-esque image of beauty that elves almost surely shouldn’t possess, and 2) a serious problem of describing most elves as “good and beautiful” and drow as “evil”. 

“Although they can be haughty, elves are generally gracious even to those who fall short of their high expectations—which is most non-elves.”

“Most of the gods accepted Corellon’s mutability and passionate behavior, but these traits infuriated Gruumsh, the greatest of the orc gods.” -Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes, p. 35

The PHB has a subsection on elven attitudes toward other races, specifically dwarves, halflings, and humans. This subsection is comprised of backhanded compliments: dwarves are stupid and clumsy but brave and good craftworkers, humans go much too fast but they’re good at accomplishing stuff, etc. In MToF, we see the “elven perspective” that if elves are reincarnated souls of their ancestor elves, then half-elves are a reincarnated but weak elf, a human soul in an elf-ish body, or a “true elf” trapped in a half-body until freed by death, all basically bummers. And don’t get me started on orcs, where their god was the cause of the bloodshed that created the first elves. 

In the official lore, elves look down on everyone, all the time, for just about any reason. And those reasons almost always fall into (you guessed it!) racial stereotyping!! 

There’s no discernible reason for elves to be as “haughty” as they are. Apparently they’re just so perfect that it’s impossible to live up to their expectations. I guess.

And that’s not even getting into the concept of eternally punishing all elves for apparently disagreeing with Corellon, all of one (1) single time. It’s... horrific. Reading up on the reincarnation cycle has only convinced me that it’s designed as a unique torture where elves have to spend their childhood totally aware of how they betrayed their primary deity in a past life, then when they “sleep” or trance out they also relive those memories, and then forget them just in time to die and be forced to spend up to millennia pondering how Corellon is upset with them. And that’s the elves who get reincarnated! The drow live shorter lives, and will never reach the apparent paradise of Arvandor. They just go to some other afterlife plane, presumably the one reigned over by an evil spider goddess.

Like. That’s so awful and grimdark, and steps all over the “elves are descended from the fey” thing, but more than that?

It’s horribly unimaginative. It’s just so boring in comparison to all the potential an elf society contains. (not to mention it’s wayyyy too focused on the cosmic side of things rather than a societal view.)

Reimagining Elves

yeah, so, given that we’re scrapping... pretty much all the elf lore.... I’d be remiss in not providing some cooler, more inventive options. As always, you can always choose to craft your own, but here are some ideas to get the gears turning.

Racial interactions: Elves live in close communities composed of one’s extended family, and place a lot of emphasis on family ties and the political relationships between elf families. These family communities tend toward conservatism, with the elders of the family deciding things like marriages, suitable careers, etc. 

Marrying outside the complicated political machinations of elven culture is verboten, so having half-elf children is especially off-limits. Or leave that whole hangup in the lorebooks entirely! Maybe having loads of half-elf children, especially by multiple humans, is super popular because then you can get your political influence into many different places! Who knows! 

But also, any culture that doesn’t lean into this community structure is seen as totally incomprehensible and not worth bothering with. Too many failed marriages with orcs who don’t understand things like “individual property rights”.

Aesthetics: Elves tend to do artsy stuff, but their definition of “art” is... unusual, for most other races. They carve large boulders in the woods and just... leave them there for travelers to find, or manipulate the growth of vines to take shapes like one of an elf drawing a bow, or weave a glimmering silver net of fine thread and hang it from the trees like a dew-speckled spiderweb. They’re reclusive, living in artists enclaves. 

They might dress in loud colors, play screamo music because it’s “expressive”, and paint their faces with blocky shapes because it’s “an avant-garde reflection of the soul.” Go wild. 

Elves can be chubby, elves can be fat, elves can be buff, elves can be light and dark-skinned, elves can glow in the dark, elves can be disabled, elves can be chronically ill (actually, imagine elves with disabilities or illness creating the most pretentious medical aids or training like. a direwolf as a service animal. cause they’re that extra.), elves can be tall or short or whatever. just make sure they have pointy ears (unless...)

Subrace differences, gender: different elf communities have very different views on gender; none of which are “there are two immutable genders/sexes.” for instance, high elves might have a rigid 2-gender system, but it mostly relies on sets of stereotypes and social roles that adolescent elves have to choose as they mature, and then they’re ‘locked in’ for the rest of their life, and they’re seriously looked down on for violating those rules one gender is not valued over another, but they’re rigid systems. 

wood elves may have a ‘what’s a gender’ approach instead, but then any elf who comes up with a gender identity for themself is suspected of wanting to be like those snobbish high elves or something. 

The drow are inclined to have lots of genders, but there’s a clear hierarchy that places “femininity” (by an elf definition) above other gender presentations in emulation of their goddess, Lolth. 

Subrace differences, food: Elves divide themselves by how they cultivate their food. Wood elves cultivate “wild” foods by feeding meat and dairy-producing animals and taking care of naturally occurring plants, and harvesting from the technically-untamed world when they need supplies. 

High Elves have gardens and livestock pens, which are typically exquisitely maintained, but they don’t eat meat; all animals are strictly for dairy and textiles. 

Drow have a collectivist system of crop production, which involves sustainable growing practices on the lands they own aboveground and harvesting at night. They keep animals to eat weeds, bees to pollinate and for honey, and spiders that catch pest insects that would damage the crops.

Religion/Ancestry: some elves believe their elf gods shaped them from the fey, some believe they were descended from the fey and the gods adopted them, and others insist that evolution is fake and the gods created them from whole cloth and the fey thing is just a coincidence.

Weapons: Elves train with weapons because it is: an artform (weapon dancing), a skill competition, an environmental necessity (either for hunting or for battle), or what have you.

The drow, as a whole: you get to choose one. Either the drow are evil, or the drow are dark-skinned, or neither of those are true (on like, a subrace level. individual drow can be whatever). Anyway. If the drow aren’t evil (the better option anyway), they weren’t exiled to the Underdark. Obviously. but a significant portion of the elven population is descended from winter eladrin/the Unseelie Court, and as a result they are allergic to sunlight to varying degrees, so they’ve made a home underground. They worship the spider goddess because she taught them to weave clothing from the web of giant spiders that live in the Underdark. Let Lolth be the goddess of practical craftwork, rather than art for art’s sake, a goddess of knowledge and advancement instead of murder and savagery.

Obviously you can use any and all of these in your own campaign. If you don’t use them, have fun making up your own lore that is clearly superior to existing WotC elf lore!

[parabelled]

Recommendations for Social Sciences Literature:

So as a recently graduated law student and lawyer (as well as being affected by many areas of intersectionality related below), I’ve been really into studying the social sciences and how society reflects how it treats the least of its citizens. My friend suggested that I draw up a list of recommendations for her, and share it with others as well. 

While my interest in these books might begin in how to consider the perspectives of others and consolidate my own point of view when representing a client, I can safely reassure you all that these are (for the most part) layperson books that I read in my spare time; not ridiculous legal dirges that will put you to sleep. All these books were spectacularly engaging for me, and I’d recommend them highly.

I’d also  like to preface this list with the fact that I educate myself on books that consider intersectionality and how the experiences of individual subsections of society affect society as a whole and an individual’s position in them. While as a result of the topics themselves these books often consider bigotry and sensitive issues/topics, they are academic considerations of societal constructs and demographics (as well as the history that grows from oppression of certain subsections of society), and attempt to be balanced academic/philosophical narratives. Therefore, while difficult topics might be broached (such as, for example, the discrimination transexual women face in being considered ‘women’), none that I have read would ever be intentionally insulting/ extremist in their views, and many are written by scholars and academics directly affected by these issues. Just research these books before purchasing them, is all I ask; for your own self-care. ♥

That being said, I have divided these recommendations into several areas of study. I will also mark when there is a decided crossover of intersectionality, for your benefit:

Feminist Theory: Mostly concerned with the limitation of womens emotions, the experience of women within Trump’s America, and the idealised liberation of women in 1960s, with a particular focus on the UK and ‘swinging’ London.

Disability Theory: Academic Ableism in post-educational facilities and within the immigration process.

Black Theory: This includes the relations between colonialism and the oppressed individual’s underneath its weight, the struggle through American’s history through ‘white rage’ towards the success of African-American success, and a sad history of racial ‘passing’ in America.

Immigration Theory: This mostly focuses on the experience of the disabled and Southern/Eastern Europeans/ Jewish people entering both Canada and the United States. It also provides this background to the immigration policies against a backdrop of social eugenics. I also included a book on the UK history of the workhouse in this category, as immigrants were often disproportionately affected by poverty once arriving in the UK/England, and often had to seek shelter in such ‘establishments.’

LGBT+ Social Theory/History: The history of transsexualism and the development of transexual rights throughout history.

Canadian Indigenous Theory/History: A history of the movements between the Indigenous peoples of North America and colonialists, as well as a two-part series on Canada’s Indian Act and Reconciliation (’Legalise’ aside in its consideration of the Indian Act, these are fantastic for the layperson to understand the effect such a document has had on the modern day issues and abuse of Indigenous people in Canada in particular, as well as how non-Indigenous people may work actively towards reconciliation in the future).

Toxic Masculinity: Angry White Men essentially tries to explain the unexplainable; namely, why there has been such a rise of the racist and sexist white American male, that eventually culminated in the election of Donald Trump (However, this really rings true for any ‘angry white men’ resulting from the rise of the far right across Europe and beyond). It is based on the idea of "aggrieved entitlement": a sense that those benefits that white men believed were their due have been snatched away from them by THE REST OF US~~~. While good, also just really expect to be mad (not in particular at the poor sociologist studying this and analysing this phenomenon, as he tries to be even-handed, but that such a thing exists at all).

1. Feminist Theory:

Rage Becomes Her: The Power of Women's Anger: 

As women, we’ve been urged for so long to bottle up our anger, letting it corrode our bodies and minds in ways we don’t even realize. Yet there are so, so many legitimate reasons for us to feel angry, ranging from blatant, horrifying acts of misogyny to the subtle drip, drip drip of daily sexism that reinforces the absurdly damaging gender norms of our society. In Rage Becomes Her, Soraya Chemaly argues that our anger is not only justified, it is also an active part of the solution. We are so often encouraged to resist our rage or punished for justifiably expressing it, yet how many remarkable achievements would never have gotten off the ground without the kernel of anger that fueled them? Approached with conscious intention, anger is a vital instrument, a radar for injustice and a catalyst for change. On the flip side, the societal and cultural belittlement of our anger is a cunning way of limiting and controlling our power—one we can no longer abide.

Nasty Women: Feminism, Resistance, and Revolution in Trump's America: 

Nasty Women includes inspiring essays from a diverse group of talented women writers who seek to provide a broad look at how we got here and what we need to do to move forward.Featuring essays by REBECCA SOLNIT on Trump and his “misogyny army,” CHERYL STRAYED on grappling with the aftermath of Hillary Clinton’s loss, SARAH HEPOLA on resisting the urge to drink after the election, NICOLE CHUNG on family and friends who support Trump, KATHA POLLITT on the state of reproductive rights and what we do next, JILL FILIPOVIC on Trump’s policies and the life of a young woman in West Africa, SAMANTHA IRBY on racism and living as a queer black woman in rural America, RANDA JARRAR on traveling across the country as a queer Muslim American, SARAH HOLLENBECK on Trump’s cruelty toward the disabled, MEREDITH TALUSAN on feminism and the transgender community, and SARAH JAFFE on the labor movement and active and effective resistance, among others.

(A heavy focus on intersectionality ♥)

The Feminine Revolution: 21 Ways to Ignite the Power of Your Femininity for a Brighter Life and a Better World: 

Challenging old and outdated perceptions that feminine traits are weaknesses, The Feminine Revolution revisits those characteristics to show how they are powerful assets that should be embraced rather than maligned. It argues that feminine traits have been mischaracterized as weak, fragile, diminutive, and embittered for too long, and offers a call to arms to redeem them as the superpowers and gifts that they are.The authors, Amy Stanton and Catherine Connors, begin with a brief history of when-and-why these traits were defined as weaknesses, sharing opinions from iconic females including Marianne Williamson and Cindy Crawford. Then they offer a set of feminine principles that challenge current perceptions of feminine traits, while providing women new mindsets to reclaim those traits with confidence. 

How Was It For You?: Women, Sex, Love and Power in the 1960s:

The sexual revolution liberated a generation. But men most of all.

We tend to think of the 60s as a decade sprinkled with stardust: a time of space travel and utopian dreams, but above all of sexual abandonment. When the pill was introduced on the NHS in 1961 it seemed, for the first time, that women - like men - could try without buying.

But this book - by 'one of the great social historians of our time' - describes a turbulent power struggle.

Here are the voices from the battleground. Meet dollybird Mavis, debutante Kristina, Beryl who sang with the Beatles, bunny girl Patsy, Christian student Anthea, industrial campaigner Mary and countercultural Caroline. From Carnaby Street to Merseyside, from mods to rockers, from white gloves to Black is Beautiful, their stories throw an unsparing spotlight on morals, four-letter words, faith, drugs, race, bomb culture and sex.

This is a moving, shocking book about tearing up the world and starting again. It's about peace, love, psychedelia and strange pleasures, but it is also about misogyny, violation and discrimination - half a century before feminism rebranded. For out of the swamp of gropers and groupies, a movement was emerging, and discovering a new cause: equality.

The 1960s: this was where it all began. Women would never be the same again.

2. Disability Theory:

Academic Ableism: Disability and Higher Education: 

Academic Ableism brings together disability studies and institutional critique to recognize the ways that disability is composed in and by higher education, and rewrites the spaces, times, and economies of disability in higher education to place disability front and center. For too long, argues Jay Timothy Dolmage, disability has been constructed as the antithesis of higher education, often positioned as a distraction, a drain, a problem to be solved. The ethic of higher education encourages students and teachers alike to accentuate ability, valorize perfection, and stigmatize anything that hints at intellectual, mental, or physical weakness, even as we gesture toward the value of diversity and innovation. Examining everything from campus accommodation processes, to architecture, to popular films about college life, Dolmage argues that disability is central to higher education, and that building more inclusive schools allows better education for all.

(See immigration below for another book by this author on the intersection between immigration policy and disability).

3. Black Theory:

Black Skin, White Masks by Frantz Fanon: 

A major influence on civil rights, anti-colonial, and black consciousness movements around the world, Black Skin, White Masks is the unsurpassed study of the black psyche in a white world. Hailed for its scientific analysis and poetic grace when it was first published in 1952, the book remains a vital force today from one of the most important theorists of revolutionary struggle, colonialism, and racial difference in history.

White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism: 

Referring to the defensive moves that white people make when challenged racially, white fragility is characterized by emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt, and by behaviors including argumentation and silence. These behaviors, in turn, function to reinstate white racial equilibrium and prevent any meaningful cross-racial dialogue. In this in-depth exploration, the author examines how white fragility develops, how it protects racial inequality, and what we can do to engage more constructively.

White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide: 

From the Civil War to our combustible present, and now with a new epilogue about the 2016 presidential election, acclaimed historian Carol Anderson reframes our continuing conversation about race. White Rage chronicles the powerful forces opposed to black progress in America. As Ferguson, Missouri, erupted in August 2014, and media commentators across the ideological spectrum referred to the angry response of African Americans as “black rage,” historian Carol Anderson wrote a remarkable op-ed in the Washington Post showing that this was, instead, “white rage at work. With so much attention on the flames,” she writes, “everyone had ignored the kindling.”Since 1865 and the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment, every time African Americans have made advances towards full participation in our democracy, white reaction has fueled a deliberate and relentless rollback of their gains. The end of the Civil War and Reconstruction was greeted with the Black Codes and Jim Crow; the Supreme Court's landmark 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision was met with the shutting down of public schools throughout the South while taxpayer dollars financed segregated white private schools; the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965 triggered a coded but powerful response, the so-called Southern Strategy and the War on Drugs that disenfranchised millions of African Americans while propelling presidents Nixon and Reagan into the White House.Carefully linking these and other historical flashpoints when social progress for African Americans was countered by deliberate and cleverly crafted opposition, Anderson pulls back the veil that has long covered actions made in the name of protecting democracy, fiscal responsibility, or protection against fraud, rendering visible the long lineage of white rage. Compelling and dramatic in the unimpeachable history it relates, White Rage will add an important new dimension to the national conversation about race in America.

A Chosen Exile: A History of Racial Passing in American Life:

 Between the eighteenth and mid-twentieth centuries, countless African Americans passed as white, leaving behind families and friends, roots and community. It was, as Allyson Hobbs writes, a chosen exile, a separation from one racial identity and the leap into another. This revelatory history of passing explores the possibilities and challenges that racial indeterminacy presented to men and women living in a country obsessed with racial distinctions. It also tells a tale of loss.As racial relations in America have evolved so has the significance of passing. To pass as white in the antebellum South was to escape the shackles of slavery. After emancipation, many African Americans came to regard passing as a form of betrayal, a selling of one’s birthright. When the initially hopeful period of Reconstruction proved short-lived, passing became an opportunity to defy Jim Crow and strike out on one’s own.Although black Americans who adopted white identities reaped benefits of expanded opportunity and mobility, Hobbs helps us to recognize and understand the grief, loneliness, and isolation that accompanied―and often outweighed―these rewards. By the dawning of the civil rights era, more and more racially mixed Americans felt the loss of kin and community was too much to bear, that it was time to “pass out” and embrace a black identity. Although recent decades have witnessed an increasingly multiracial society and a growing acceptance of hybridity, the problem of race and identity remains at the center of public debate and emotionally fraught personal decisions.

4. Immigration Theory:

The Guarded Gate: Bigotry, Eugenics and the Law That Kept Two Generations of Jews, Italians, and Other European Immigrants Out of America:  

A forgotten, dark chapter of American history with implications for the current day, The Guarded Gate tells the story of the scientists who argued that certain nationalities were inherently inferior, providing the intellectual justification for the harshest immigration law in American history. Brandished by the upper class Bostonians and New Yorkers—many of them progressives—who led the anti-immigration movement, the eugenic arguments helped keep hundreds of thousands of Jews, Italians, and other unwanted groups out of the US for more than 40 years.Over five years in the writing, The Guarded Gate tells the complete story from its beginning in 1895, when Henry Cabot Lodge and other Boston Brahmins launched their anti-immigrant campaign. In 1921, Vice President Calvin Coolidge declared that “biological laws” had proven the inferiority of southern and eastern Europeans; the restrictive law was enacted three years later.

Disabled Upon Arrival: Eugenics, Immigration, and the Construction of Race and Disability: 

In North America, immigration has never been about immigration. That was true in the early twentieth century when anti-immigrant rhetoric led to draconian crackdowns on the movement of bodies, and it is true today as new measures seek to construct migrants as dangerous and undesirable. This premise forms the crux of Jay Timothy Dolmage’s new book Disabled Upon Arrival: Eugenics, Immigration, and the Construction of Race and Disability, a compelling examination of the spaces, technologies, and discourses of immigration restriction during the peak period of North American immigration in the early twentieth century.Through careful archival research and consideration of the larger ideologies of racialization and xenophobia, Disabled Upon Arrival links anti-immigration rhetoric to eugenics—the flawed “science” of controlling human population based on racist and ableist ideas about bodily values. Dolmage casts an enlightening perspective on immigration restriction, showing how eugenic ideas about the value of bodies have never really gone away and revealing how such ideas and attitudes continue to cast groups and individuals as disabled upon arrival. 

The Workhouse: The People, The Places, The Life Behind Doors:

In this fully updated and revised edition of his best-selling book, Simon Fowler takes a fresh look at the workhouse and the people who sought help from it. He looks at how the system of the Poor Law - of which the workhouse was a key part - was organized and the men and women who ran the workhouses or were employed to care for the inmates. But above all this is the moving story of the tens of thousands of children, men, women and the elderly who were forced to endure grim conditions to survive in an unfeeling world. 

5. LGBT+ Social Theory/History:

Transgender History: The Roots of Today's Revolution:

Covering American transgender history from the mid-twentieth century to today, Transgender History takes a chronological approach to the subject of transgender history, with each chapter covering major movements, writings, and events. Chapters cover the transsexual and transvestite communities in the years following World War II; trans radicalism and social change, which spanned from 1966 with the publication of The Transsexual Phenomenon, and lasted through the early 1970s; the mid-'70s to 1990-the era of identity politics and the changes witnessed in trans circles through these years; and the gender issues witnessed through the '90s and '00s.

Transgender History includes informative sidebars highlighting quotes from major texts and speeches in transgender history and brief biographies of key players, plus excerpts from transgender memoirs and discussion of treatments of transgenderism in popular culture.

6. Canadian Indigenous Theory/History:

The Inconvenient Indian: A Curious Account of Native People in North America: 

Rich with dark and light, pain and magic, The Inconvenient Indian distills the insights gleaned from Thomas King's critical and personal meditation on what it means to be "Indian" in North America, weaving the curiously circular tale of the relationship between non-Natives and Natives in the centuries since the two first encountered each other. In the process, King refashions old stories about historical events and figures, takes a sideways look at film and pop culture, relates his own complex experiences with activism, and articulates a deep and revolutionary understanding of the cumulative effects of ever-shifting laws and treaties on Native peoples and lands. 

21 Things You May Not Know About the Indian Act: Helping Canadians Make Reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples a Reality:

Since its creation in 1876, the Indian Act has shaped, controlled, and constrained the lives and opportunities of Indigenous Peoples, and is at the root of many enduring stereotypes. Bob Joseph's book comes at a key time in the reconciliation process, when awareness from both Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities is at a crescendo. Joseph explains how Indigenous Peoples can step out from under the Indian Act and return to self-government, self-determination, and self-reliance - and why doing so would result in a better country for every Canadian. He dissects the complex issues around truth and reconciliation, and clearly demonstrates why learning about the Indian Act's cruel, enduring legacy is essential for the country to move toward true reconciliation.

Indigenous Relations: Insights, Tips & Suggestions to Make Reconciliation a Reality:

A timely sequel to the bestselling 21 Things You May Not Know About the Indian Act - and an invaluable guide for anyone seeking to work more effectively with Indigenous Peoples.

We are all treaty people. But what are the everyday impacts of treaties, and how can we effectively work toward reconciliation if we're worried our words and actions will unintentionally cause harm?

Practical and inclusive, Indigenous Relations interprets the difference between hereditary and elected leadership, and why it matters; explains the intricacies of Aboriginal Rights and Title, and the treaty process; and demonstrates the lasting impact of the Indian Act, including the barriers that Indigenous communities face and the truth behind common myths and stereotypes perpetuated since Confederation.

Indigenous Relations equips you with the necessary knowledge to respectfully avoid missteps in your work and daily life, and offers an eight-part process to help business and government work more effectively with Indigenous Peoples - benefitting workplace culture as well as the bottom line. Indigenous Relations is an invaluable tool for anyone who wants to improve their cultural competency and undo the legacy of the Indian Act.

7. Toxic Masculinity:

Angry White Men: American Masculinity at the End of an Era: 

One of the headlines of the 2012 Presidential campaign was the demise of the white American male voter as a dominant force in the political landscape. On election night four years later, when Donald Trump was announced the winner, it became clear that the white American male voter is alive and well and angry as hell. Sociologist Michael Kimmel, one of the leading writers on men and masculinity in the world today, has spent hundreds of hours in the company of America's angry white men – from white supremacists to men's rights activists to young students. In Angry White Men, he presents a comprehensive diagnosis of their fears, anxieties, and rage.Kimmel locates this increase in anger in the seismic economic, social and political shifts that have so transformed the American landscape. Downward mobility, increased racial and gender equality, and a tenacious clinging to an anachronistic ideology of masculinity has left many men feeling betrayed and bewildered. Raised to expect unparalleled social and economic privilege, white men are suffering today from what Kimmel calls "aggrieved entitlement": a sense that those benefits that white men believed were their due have been snatched away from them.

Happy reading, everyone. ♥

[wdi-usa-official]

WHRC USA Opposes The Dehumanization And Erasure Of Women In Budget Language

(The following is a repost from the WHRC USA website)

U.S. lawmakers in both the House and the Senate are currently involved in the budget reconciliation process. This is a long and complicated process, involving the allocation of approximately $3.5 trillion to various agencies, institutions, and organizations throughout the United States. The U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce is currently considering a provision regarding public health. It is Subtitle J, Section 31046 of the budget bill, and you can read it here. Section 31046 is called “Funding for Education and Training at Health Professions Schools to Identify and Address Health Risks Associated with Climate Change.” Sounds good, right? Not so fast. Subsection (a) allocates $85,000,000 “ for grants to accredited medical schools, accredited schools of nursing, teaching hospitals, midwifery programs, physician assistant education programs, residency or fellowship programs, or other schools or programs determined appropriate by the Secretary, to support the development and integration of education and training programs for identifying and addressing health risks associated with climate change for pregnant, lactating, and postpartum individuals” (emphasis added). Subsection (b) goes on to specify that: Amounts made available by subsection (a) shall be used for developing, integrating, and implementing curriculum and continuing education that focuses on the following: (1) Identifying health risks associated with climate change for pregnant, lactating, and postpartum individuals and individuals with the intent to become pregnant. (2) How health risks associated with climate change affect pregnant, lactating, and postpartum individuals and individuals with the intent to become pregnant. (3) Racial and ethnic disparities in exposure to, and the effects of, health risks associated with climate change for pregnant, lactating, and postpartum individuals and individuals with the intent to become pregnant. (4) Patient counseling and mitigation strategies relating to health risks associated with climate change for pregnant, lactating, and postpartum individuals. (5) Relevant services and support for pregnant, lactating, and postpartum individuals relating to health risks associated with climate change and strategies for ensuring such individuals have access to such services and support. (6) Implicit and explicit bias, racism, and discrimination in providing care to pregnant, lactating, and postpartum individuals and individuals with the intent to become pregnant.

Women deserve better than this.

Article 2 of the Declaration on Women’s Sex-Based Rights reaffirms the nature of motherhood as an exclusively female status. Subsections (b) and (c) state: Maternal rights and services are based on women’s unique capacity to gestate and give birth to children. The physical and biological characteristics that distinguish males and females mean that women’s reproductive capacity cannot be shared by men who claim a female ‘gender identity.’ States should understand that the inclusion of men who claim a female ‘gender identity’ into the legal category of mother in law, policies and practice, and the corresponding inclusion of women who claim a male ‘gender identity’ into the category of father, constitute discrimination against women by seeking to eliminate women’s unique status and sex-based rights as mothers. States should ensure that the word ‘mother,’ and other words traditionally used to refer to women’s reproductive capacities on the basis of sex, continue to be used in constitutional acts. Legislation, in the provision of maternal services, and in policy documents when referring to mothers and motherhood. The meaning of the word ‘mother’ shall not be changed to include men. How presumptuous of the United States government to deny the uniquely female status of pregnant, lactating, and postpartum women. The U.S. chapter of the Women’s Human Rights Campaign demands that the United States government stop dehumanizing and erasing the sex class called women by referring to us simply as individuals. We are adult human females. We are women.

[guiasmith]

So people are still ignorant about the gays

But this time it’s around the concept of “confirmed bachelors”.

Firstly, background. I’m a college student (for software development) currently in an ethics introduction course. It’s a gen-ed, meaning most people have to take some form of it, and this one in particular has the usual grueling textbook. Thank goodness this one’s free because I’d ask for my money back. Besides weirdly gendered language at times, filler double explanations, the fact that our teacher has equally good or better examples in our Blackboard lesson plan, and the name being “concise” despite its lack of conciseness 80-90% of the time, it has this one specific passage under the first subsection of the Kantianism chapter. Note that this passage is not condemning anyone and you don’t have to be aware of what Kantianism even is.

“Consider a common argument against homosexual sex: if everyone did that, disaster would soon follow, for the human race would quickly die out. Even if this were true, that wouldn’t show that homosexual sex is immoral. Why not? Well, consider those who have decided to remain celibate—perhaps they are priests, or committed lifelong bachelors who believe that one shouldn’t have sex without being married. What if everyone did that—in other words, refrained from having sex? The same results would follow. But that doesn’t show that celibacy is immoral.”

The middle sentence about those who remain celibate is what I’m focusing on here. The author seemed to miss the entire concept "confirmed bachelors", and the yikes of people who've suffered from things like conversion therapy with a dash of irony. It may be coincidence or unaware poor choice of words, but I'll still point it out. "Committed lifelong bachelors" brings to my mind several things.

Firstly, the tragic one is the people who've internalized homophobia justifying not having sex at all. I've run into several of them as historic and current examples, many of them religious figures like pastors or priests suppressing or actively self-deprecating their feelings. More people today just “choose to be celibate” instead of committing a perceived sin.

This is a bit of a tangential example, but here goes: I’ve heard of some poor misguided man who didn’t “act on those urges” because he went through conversion therapy or intervention by his parents and church leaders. I found out about this because he has a panel at a Christian youth gathering titled “Homosexuality ruined my life!” My friend was forced to attend said panel because he was outed as gay by our pastor, but this panel’s goal very much backfired because everyone agreed this guy was not very persuasive in saying being gay was bad at all. If anything, the church clearly ruined his life. He’s lonely, reliant on them because of lost job prospects, can’t really speak of benefits the church has provided since he’s still considered an outcast by many, and can’t even make a sound argument as to what was wrong with him in the first place. But that’s not what the book’s talking about exactly, just one example of who it’s glossing over.

Second, on a much more positive note, asexuals are being recognized, albeit indirectly and in a general, not all-encompassing example. I would bet asexuality is a big bag of nope in Kantianism because it’s duty ethics and identity concepts like aces kind of screw with universal rules that Kantianism tries to construct.

Thirdly, on note of the same phrase that implies asexuals who use religious justification to avoid physical relationships, I think it stands to reason this author is just some tangentially aware fellow that doesn't know "committed lifelong bachelor" is a concept that comes from the old phrase "confirmed bachelor" or "committed bachelor". This was a self-identified term for single men who usually had fellow bachelor "close friends" or "roommates" in the 19th century.

In reality, besides the odd asexual, they were usually gay.

This, the saying that "one shouldn't have sex without being married," is exactly the argument many used to say they were good men who followed the law and were morally pure to avoid getting persecuted and prosecuted for being homosexuals. This also loops back around to religious figures who cannot get married and thus "certainly couldn't dare to engage in sexual acts". You know, the cloistered queers. (<- Link to great podcast episode that gave me that term and later also taught me “confirmed bachelor”.)

Further on this point, that sentence followed after talking about homosexual sex. It's situationally ironic that, in a sentence about celibacy as a point to consider besides homosexuality, a concept of identity from homosexuals is used. This all probably comes from some blissful ignorance on the author's part, but it is both tragic and comically ironic choice of words. I could not let it go unsaid.

Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

[femvulvaphile]

let’s break that weird shit down, then

“We’ve been here since the beginning. I know your hate group, your little Nazi sub-sect, has this lie you like to spread that we suddenly spring into being from whole cloth in the 1970s, but that fighting all through history? WE’VE. BEEN THERE. FOR ALL OF IT.” cool but that’s literally not what I said. transwomen’s and women’s fights are inherently different. Sex-based oppression doesn’t DIRECTLY affect transwomen: you will never be shunned for menstruating, you will never be afraid of having your prepubescent vulva mutilated for the sick pleasure of a men five times your age, you will never be afraid of being impregnated against your will, or of miscarriage of a wanted child, or of all the pregnancy and birth complications who are still killing women all over the world. you will never know what it’s like to have men catcall and grope you when you’re nine years old just because your boobs already began to grow.   

"The demonization of trans women is a relatively recent invention in the grand scheme of human history and it is one that you have helped re-surge into the modern world.” that’s bullshit. the “demonization” you’re talking about can refer to one of two things: either the conservative view that transwomen are “deviant men” (which I definitely agree is shitty), or the radical feminist view that transwomen retain their male socialization and so, as a group, can represent danger to women (which is backed up by research, btw, and the amount of “receipts” in the form of news reports of transwomen hurting and murdering cis women AND in the unending threats and harassment that radfems receive online and irl).

"The idea of ASAB and tying it to gender in some inviolate and unchangeable way is something colonizing white people brought to this country, and others they invaded.” cool but that’s bullshit? pretty much every culture on earth has a history of identifying biological sex and applying sociological roles to them. that’s not a white invention, that’s not the fruit of colonialism. the concept of “gender” as behaviors and roles based on reproductive function has existed for as long as people have existed. some cultures have stricter rules about them, others are more loose. some cultures refuse to acknowledge non-conforming people as their “original gender”, and then you have things like two-spirit or hijras.

"Whether you realize it or not, and…let’s be honest, you probably do, your actions, your hate group, is just a laser-guided subsection of what fascism and white supremacy stands for.” wtf tho. fascists and white supremacists and nazi want a “pure” world without “lesser” groups, like black people, jewish people, homosexuals, gnc people. how is female-only radical feminism the same? are you aware that plenty of radical feminists are woc themselves, and even jewish? are you aware that the vast majority of people you’d call “terfs” aren’t even american, or english speakers? we literally just want men to stop fucking murdering us.

“Without colonization, without white supremacy, your argument, your constant, hammering on “male” as if to conjure some demon from the word, would mean nothing.” male violence has been a reality in human history. it’s not a theory, it’s not up to debate. it’s a fact. you know it is, according to your original post talking about men posing the most danger to transwomen. women all over the world are victims of men. it doesn’t change whether we talk about it, or use the words male, men, amab.

"I don’t mean that in the rhetorical sense, I mean literally, your words would not have a cogent basis without that.” again, bullshit. male violence is everywhere, in every culture, in every part of the world, regardless of how much contact with europen colonization the culture has had. japanese men are violent, russian men are violent, french men are violent, english men are violent, american men are violent, cuban men are violent, argentinian men are violent, brazilian men are violent. nazis didn’t invent misogyny.

“How fucking dare you invoke my dead sisters, how fucking dare you bring up that most of us getting murdered are PoC, while peddling Nazi approved propaganda.” uh. it’s “nazi approved propaganda” to say that women face violence from men and therefore need safe spaces from them? and I brought up the groups that murdered transwomen belong to because YOUR GROUP likes using them, using your so-called dead sisters, as argument points, as proof that a white middle class educated men with a dress and lipstick is somehow more oppressed than any woman on earth.

“Meanwhile, asshole,” oh cool name calling when I wrote a relatively calm and non-offensive post. “I was talking about SHARED SPACES. LGBT focused communities, the ones you are perpetually try to focus trans lesbians out of because you view us as the worst of what you already consider the worst.” yeah, maybe we wouldn’t need to do that if “lesbian” transwomen could stop demanding so much from women, or if they’d stop claiming protagonism when they don’t even experience SAME-SEX ATTRACTION, which historically has been, you know, the entire defining poing for “lgbt” people.

“You didn’t even notice it, did you? You were just launching into Pre-Written Terf Rhetoric #5 without so much as reading what I actually. Fucking. Said.” dude, you’re calling me a nazi literally just because I said women deserve female-only spaces and transwomen should create their own safe spaces away from men instead of demanding entry and protection from women.

"Your insistence that we’re “straight men” only serves to try and push us out of those communities as well." you have more in common with straight men than with lesbians, tho. you don’t experience same-sex attraction, you’re not female, you can impregnate a female lesbian (depending on transition specifics, but let’s be honest: the big problem is the transwomen who claim “there’s no need to need to transition bc my dick is a woman’s dick”), if you’re not “passing” you don’t need to fear homophobic violence from strangers.

“Jesus fuck, like did you even notice that was the fucking point? Like your shoving us aside as non-women is already fucked up but that wasn’t even the point of this particular post.” the point of your post was vilifying women who question the notion that “transwomen are exactly the same as women”. the point of your post was putting the blame on women, “terfs”, for what men do.

"The idea that men view us as also men is so beyond laughable I can’t even properly convey it.” they view you as “DEFECTIVE” men. they definitely don’t view you as women. men are violent towards you as a result of toxic masculinity - a non-conforming male is a threat to their notion of rigid male-female roles. the violence towards you is closer in motivation to the violence towards gay men, rather than the one towards women.

"But I’m just going to say: You don’t live our lives. You don’t live our experiences.” yes. just like you don’t live the lives of women. which is exactly why I said transwomen do deserve safe spaces, but not by invading female-only safe spaces.

"If you don’t know how wrong you are it’s because you’re incapable of treating our words as anything but the words of the target of your hate and thus discarded.” you’re lumping me in with nazis (I’m a latina gender-non-conforming lesbian, I’d be raped and killed by actual nazis faster than you could type “op is a terf”), refusing to actually ACKNOWLEDGE the things I said, bringing up way more arguments than the ones on your original post, and then blaming me for not being able to read your mind.

“The power you hold is that you have been aligning yourself with right-wing christian groups,” bullshit. again: women can’t even get men to stop raping us. how exactly do you think we have any power, any voice, over THE most misogynistic men on the planet?

"the power you hold is that your ilk has been speaking to audiences wherever they can find them in academia for decades,” again, bullshit. women have been in academia for, like, two years, in comparison to how long men have been dominating every public and private space.

"the power you hold is that you went into the communities that might have helped us stay alive and sowed false accusations to turn others against us,” b u l l s h i t. YOU came into OUT communities demanding we treat you as equals, when we are observably NOT equals. sex-based oppression doesn’t affect transwomen the same way it does women. men’s violence is distinctly different based on your sex.

"the power you hold is in helping, insidiously, to uphold the institutional biases that keep us marginalized, alone, and dying.” the same can be said of modern trans rights activists, tho. you’re all contributing to the strengthening of gender as a hierarchy - and not because you need to conform to survive. no, your original message (the one we can still hear from drag queens and transvestites from stonewall, for instance, that your kind likes to claim as “transwomen”) has been corrupted to the point where people look at a feminine gay boy and tell him he must be trans, he must transition, he must be a woman because he likes makeup and is attracted to men. your kind tells parents of vulnerable children that their little boys and girls will KILL THEMSELVES if they don’t take hormones as soon as possible. your group tells lesbians they need to suck dick to be proper lesbians. your group supports (and breeds) more murderers, rapists, and pedophiles than radical feminism could. your group tells women of color, lesbians, survivors of all sorts of male violence, that they’re the problem. you tell us we’re even worse than men. you tell us to die, you threaten us with rape, with baseball bats. you punch sixty year old women who dare take a picture of people trying to silence women. you rape and murder a twelve year old girl. you rape and forcibly impregnate a female trans person, and then brag about it. you support rapists and pedophiles being housed in women’s prison because of their “gender feels”. 

you tell women to shut up about their own experiences. you tell women they’re not the “right kind” of women. you tell women they’re not woman “enough”. you tell them to sacirfice themselves for yet another male.

“And yes, before you even start, I’m blocking you. I don’t debate Nazis or Nazi bootlicks.” still nowhere near being a nazi, but alright.

bonus:

“also do they just have a terf blog name generator somewhere, i swear all terf blogs read like a bunch of synonyms for vagina and spellings of rad and possibly a wolf reference or phile or fetishist, all put in a random name generator” that’s hilarious to men because I literally saved this url after I seeing an asshole claim that lesbians aren’t allowed to call themselves lesbians if they don’t suck dick, and that they’re actually vagina fetishists. the person used -phile on something, I can’t recall what, and I immediately thought “hmm, yes. I love vulvas. I’m a vulvaphile. A female vulvaphile.” 

[clubpassim]

Women in Folk - The Ladles

Hey there!

Katie here, excited to bring you a very thought-provoking conversation with The Ladles!

The Ladles, Katie Martucci, Caroline Kuhn, and Lucia Pontoniere, formed in the Fall of 2014, in the New England Conservatory dorm rooms. Interestingly enough, they formed for a reason similar to what we're discussing: They were the only three women undergraduates that year in the Contemporary Improvisation program at NEC. “Being in such a boy’s club[...]”, they said, “[...]we naturally gravitated towards each other and started hanging out, singing Joni Mitchell, knitting, and playing music together. We decided to perform at a friend's house concert, and the rest is history!” The group has been performing together for about four years now, though individually they’ve all been playing for the better part of their lives, starting to sing and play as young children. When asked who their biggest musical influences were, they responded with Mountain Man, Meredith Monk, and The Boswell Sisters; all artists with rich harmonies that have played a part in helping The Ladles form their own rich and beautiful harmonies. That, paired with their varying musical backgrounds, has shaped their sound into the unique blend they’re known for having. The band is currently working towards the debut of their first full-length album, ‘The Line’, coming out on July 12th! “We are super excited about this, as we've only got an EP recorded and we really want to share these songs”.

They will be doing an album release tour around the northeast beginning on July 11, 2019. To stay up to date on the progress of their album, tour dates, etc., make sure to follow them on Instagram, check them out on Facebook, or visit their website! And be sure to come hear them play at Club Passim on Friday, July 19th, 2019 at 8 pm. You can buy tickets online here.

The next portion of the interview was focused on their experiences as women in the folk community.

[full interview under the cut]

Club Passim: Talk a little about your experiences as a female artist/all-female group in a heavily male-dominated music genre.

The Ladles: Well, to begin with, we felt it right away when we all arrived at New England Conservatory and realized how few women were in our program. It can definitely create a divide, and it's easy to feel judged for how you play and what you play. There's a sense of needing to prove yourself. Styles of music that include more improvisation tend to be more male-dominated. This is because we believe men are allowed to make more 'mistakes' than women in our society. We don't have to look very far to see examples of this. Improvisation is all about making mistakes and being vulnerable; you figure things out as you go and you will make a fool of yourself. But because women don't have that same sort of leeway, they often shy away from that level of exposure.

We're sure many women can relate to the experience of feeling pressure to present as "perfect." As we have continued to grow as musicians and The Ladles has grown as a band, it's been easier to let go of perfection in favor of taking risks and learning new things. In those moments, we certainly make "mistakes" but also feel more creative, authentic and fulfilled.

CP: Do you notice a difference in how you’re treated by other artists, venues, audiences, and industry professionals before vs. after you play?

TL: We definitely have. Condescending comments like, "Wow I'm surprised at how good you are!" We literally have had people say that. But the vast majority of audiences and venues are very supportive and treat us with respect.

CP: Do you feel you are viewed differently on stage by men v. women?

TL: I think this varies more person-to-person, rather than men vs. women. Of course, there is a measure of objectification that is inherent with performance, whether you are female or male. That being said, the presence of the "male gaze" is undeniable (obviously among straight males) when you are a woman being viewed on stage by a man.

CP: Often, all-male bands have a heavy female fanbase that buy merch, go to many shows, support, etc. Do you feel you have the male gender's support of your music in this same way? Why or why not do you think that is?

TL: Our fanbase is pretty equally male and female. The men who enjoy our music respect us as musicians and genuinely enjoy what we have to offer. In our generation, there is generally more awareness among men of respecting women (at least in the lovely bubble that we live in, in the northeast). But honestly we see it throughout the country - even in the deep south where Lucia is living these days - things have changed a lot between our generation and our parents’.

At the same time, one cannot ignore the violence and oppression that women face en masse. The abortion laws being passed in various state legislature around the country are a good indicator of the ways in which women continue to be policed. Women in every profession have to deal with these questions of respect, creative/intellectual worth, body image, and entitlement. Femme musicians just have the added experience of navigating that in public, on stage.

CP: Incredible classical artists such as classical pianist Yuja Wang use their performance attire as a way to express themselves. This provocative style of dress has been viewed as “distracting” from the music. What are your personal thoughts on women using fashion and sex-appeal as a means of bringing in more audience members and assisting in selling their music?

TL: Performers should be able to dress and act however they want! They are creating a performance, and that includes a visual aspect. If a woman is using her sex appeal, go right ahead girl! The bigger issue here is that sex appeal and skill are not mutually exclusive. A woman can be an incredible musician and not fit society's typical (and ridiculous) standards of beauty and be overlooked and ignored. On the other hand, a woman can be an incredible musician, fit some of those ridiculous standards of beauty, and therefore not be taken seriously. There's no "right" way to do this, so just be yourself and wait for everyone else to catch up.

CP: In your opinion, how can men be more aware or informed about women in the music industry?

TL: Men can include women in their projects, they can support their femme friends' shows and projects, and they can examine their own experiences! Really just talk to your female friends and listen to what they say about their experiences.

CP: What do you do in a situation when you feel disrespected by the artists/co-workers you’re surrounded by?

TL: Try to address it, as quickly as possible. It can be super hard, but it's important for both parties. Sometimes people aren't even aware that they're acting in a way that feels disrespectful to you. Learning to trust your gut and to vocalize those feelings is hard work, but really the only way to bring about change in a work environment and step into your power.

CP: What message do you want to display as a woman in folk music?

TL: We think it's important to stop making subsections of musicians - "Women in music" "All female band"  etc. We don't want to be defined as "female musicians", we just want to be musicians! We should be able to transcend that label. It can be creatively limiting to put yourself into a box that labels you a certain way. We are happy to talk about our experiences as women living in a society that still takes issue with women living public lives, in fact, it's absolutely essential dialogue that can be informative for women and men. But why not ask men to examine their experiences as well? How have they benefited from sexism? What has been easier for them because of their gender? What do they not understand about life as a femme creator? What is their experience of working with women? Establishing that expectation, that men should be examining their experience and including women in their work, is necessary for us all to move forward.

CP: What words of wisdom/encouragement do you have for aspiring women in folk?

TL: Build community and be true to yourself and your music! If there's emotion and intention behind music, it's always good music. Who cares if anyone likes it or not? If it feels like a true expression to you, then it has merit. There's a wonderful letter from Martha Graham to Agnes de Mille that captures this idea beautifully:

“There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action,
 and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. 
And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and be lost. 
The world will not have it. 
It is not your business to determine how good it is, nor how valuable it is, nor how it compares with other expressions. 
It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. 
You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. 
You have to keep open and aware directly to the urges that motivate YOU. 
Keep the channel open.”

Thank You, Katie, Caroline, and Lucia for your thought-provoking answers. My favorite points you made were how improvisation-based genres are usually male-dominated and the reasoning behind it, and that it is everyone’s job to help establish the expectation that both men and women should reflect on their differentiating experiences with sexism in the workplace, and then talk about it more.

Thank you for reading, and stay tuned for the next installment of the ‘Women in Folk’ blog!

- Katie

Want to hear more from The Ladles? They will be performing at Club Passim on Friday, July 19th, 2019 at 8 pm. You can buy tickets online here. 

PC: Elizabeth Maney

[travel-study]

hey friends! this is the first post of a new series of masterposts i am going to do on shakespeare’s major works. i have a degree in history & english literature from one of the top unis in the uk and i’ve covered a hell of a lot of shakespeare in my time, so hopefully i can offer some help to you guys. please let me know if there’s anything you want different in future posts, feedback would be great. hope i can help, and happy new years!

themes

sex, if love be blind, it best agrees with night

romeo & juliet is absolutely chocked full of sexual overtones, it’s basically about two kids getting a bit carried away trying to get into each others pants

3.2.13-16 highlights this link between juliet’s sexual inexperience and her sexual eagerness. she is ‘unmann’d’ in that she has yet to take a husband, as well as in that an unmanned falcon would fly free if taken outdoors were a hood not pulled over its head

3.2.21-23 stresses the heartbeat rhythm, ‘come night, come romeo, come thou day in night’. it’s a fast rhythm, stressing her desire for him to come to her. her boldness is born in her desire and her separation from innocence, which could also form the base for a point about femininity and docility being tied to innocence and virginity if you fancied taking that route

mercutio has been described as ‘sex-obsessed’, but i’d say he’s a pretty archetypal teenage boy in this respect. he makes lewd references to rosaline’s ‘quivering thigh’, and mocks romeo’s ‘love’ 2.1.9-24 generally, setting up the argument that romeo can’t distinguish between love and lust. romeo also makes reference to juliet’s thighs on their wedding night, although saying that they’re ‘like jewels, the work of a master hand’ is rather nice compared to his remarks about rosaline and how she refused to ‘ope the gap’. i would say this repeated mention of thighs distinguishes the difference between the laddish chat between the boys and the conversations between a man and wife, another break from innocence and youth.

mercutio also reduces love to merely sex in 2.1.36-41, and his fruit based metaphor could easily be linked to the fruit of eden and sex being a product of the birth of sin if you wanted to go down that route

there is of course the famous pun on ‘maidenhead’, equating sword fighting with raping women, at the opening of the play, establishing and linking the consistent themes of sex and violence 

 essentially these two are horny teenagers and sex is a huge theme in the play. it is easy to tie to love, innocence, femininity etc. 

useful articles on sex in r&j: 1. 2.(ctl+f sex for ease) 3.(partic. interesting commentary on rape in r&j) 4.

masculinity, thy beauty hath made me effeminate  

this is, i think, one of the more interesting topics covered in r&j, and as a result there’s a shitload of useful sources for it

in romeo’s hypermasculine society he is expected to either violently defend his family and his name or master his own self-control and autonomy and love. he attempts to do both simultaneously and it doesn’t pan out so well for him. 

all the deaths of the young men in the play stem from them trying to fulfil these expectations of them. 

unlike benvolio, mercutio and tybalt, who maintain their masculinity in death, romeo’s suicide is seen as weak, even effeminate. 

appelbaum’s article in shakespeare quarterly is particularly important, i think, in critically addressing this conflict of gender, and i would strongly recommend it if you’re hoping to cover this theme

1. 2. (this one covers the coming of age process in r&j, but i think it’s useful to tie this in with the development of masculine ideals and expectations)

love & death, thus with a kiss i die

one cannot write about one without writing about the other when covering romeo & juliet, i think 

along with fate and society, love and death are pinpointed as key themes in the prologue, setting the audience up to tie the two ideas together

the paradoxical notion of love in death fuels these characters motives, and could potentially link to a religious theme if you wanted to take that angle (as a protip if you wanna study english or history just learn as much as you can about religion and it’ll cover you for 90% of your essays)

this article extensively covers the times in which death is mentioned in the context of love, or vice versa. it’s interesting if a bit oddly formatted 

this article talks about the context of joint burial, a physical manifestation of these tied themes, in a sense

chapter 21 on shakespeare’s early tragedies in this book is useful, and there’s a whole subsection for romeo and juliet that’s a handy read

fate, i fear... some consequence yet hanging in the stars

the elizabethan world view was shaped by a common belief in fortune, fate and the power of the stars, astrology being considered a science amongst the nobility at the time

bertrand evans noted that in r&j ‘fate is the controlling practiser, and the entire action of the play represents her at work’ in shakespeare’s tragic practice, essentially arguing that every choice made by the plays characters is just chipping away their path to their predestined ends

this article is generally great, and the third angle focuses on r&j as a tragedy of fortune. i’d recommend reading the whole thing but i’ve linked straight to the third point so that it’s focused on the theme of fate and fortune. 

i would also recommend this book, you can search for specific references to romeo and juliet, but there’s some good stuff about fate and predestination around p.55 and for the next 20 or so pages i think? i didn’t count oops

form

all of shakespeare’s plays are written in iambic pentameter. an iamb is a foot that consists of one unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. pent means 5, so there’s 5 iambs in each line

as is pretty typical for shakespeare, he uses blank verse to indicate that a person of a lower social class is speaking, or to show informality. for instance, the nurse speaks in blank verse, and mercutio does when in the informal setting of hanging around with his friends. stricter rhyme tends to come into play with characters of a higher social standing, like capulet

the play is an early example of shakespearean tragic structure. this generally fits within the 5 act structure that’s been a playwrights favourite since horace built on aristotle’s 3 segment structure. 

this is an interesting article that i’d recommend if you were hoping to look at tragic form in romeo and juliet 

more on tragic form: 1. 2. 3. 4.

language

i’m not gonna go through quotes or sections one by one here because that basically makes the process of doing your own essay redundant, but i am gonna give some tips on analysing language

the first time you read the play, enjoy it, don’t overthink it. the second time you read it pick out the sections or the lines you think are most pertinent to what you want to write about. if you have 9 books to read this week and don’t have time for this i feel you man i really do, you can just pick key phrases the first time but it kinda fucks with the flow of your understanding if you get me

worst case scenario, sparknotes will have key quotes. i only started using them when i was half way through uni because i thought i was too good to rely on sparknotes. no one is too good for sparknotes trust

anyway, compile your chosen segments according to theme and then start working out how you’ll shape your paragraph on that theme. carefully select which quotes you’ll use to back up your points, as textual evidence is crucial to building your case

close analysis of language is kind of something you need to improvise, i find. i generally don’t think there’s actually anything there and then just make something up. e.g. ‘my bounty is as boundless as the sea,/ my love as deep; the more i give to thee/ the more i have, for both are infinite’ 

so ignoring whatever else and focusing purely on language, i’d highly here rhythm and rhyme, and the obvious effort that romeo is making to use poetic language. the alliterative ‘b’ and the ‘ea, ‘ee’, ‘ee’ sounds both create a bounding rhythm reminiscent of that of juliet i mentioned earlier, building on both the sexual energy with the whole heartbeat feel and the anticipation and excitement, cos you can’t deny that boys rhythm sounds eager. ‘more’, ‘more’ again reiterates this point. ‘my’ ‘my’ ‘both’ i would say signifies romeo transitioning from being an individual to being a pair cos joining with juliet in marriage and physically etc. etc. you can just chat any old shit you fancy as long as there’s some plausible way to link it to the text

long story short, success in english is as limited as your own creativity. which isn’t limited, go crazy with it, trust yourself and your argument skills

this is such an unhelpful section i’m sorry i don’t even have any good secondary sources other than the general companions which i will now do

general reading

these are some books i would recommend you read that don’t very precisely pertain to the stuff i’ve already said. remember, though, that it’s super important to read as much of the secondary material as possible, and to grow your own opinions alongside everything that you’ve learnt reading other ideas. they aren’t designed to tell you what to think about the play/book/poem/whatever, but rather to expand your understanding of it

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.

i really hope this has helped any of you, and please feel free to ask me any questions about romeo and juliet or anything else english related that you’re struggling with! best of luck, and remember to enjoy it as much as you can!

[ohioprelawland]

First Shot Of USWNT Suit Blocked

By Vincent Lucarelli, The Ohio State University, Class of 2021

May 12, 2020

On May 1, the Central District Court of California ruled the United States Women’s National Soccer Team would not see their equal pay suit go to trial, in the case of Alex Morgan et al v. United States Soccer Federation Inc.

The team, who won their second straight FIFA World Cup in France last summer, initially filed the suit in March of 2019,alleging the fact their counterpart men’s squad is being paid more is a violation of the Equal Pay Act.The women also made additional allegations that the United States Soccer Federation was discriminating against them in other ways like giving them inferior travel accommodations.  

The Equal Pay Act dates from 1963 when President Kennedy added it as an amendment to the Fair Labor Standards Act. Section 6(d)(1) of the amendment, begins by stating “No employer having employees subject to any provisions of this section shall discriminate…. between employees on the basis of sex by paying wages to employees…at a rate less than the rate at which he pays wages to employees of the opposite sex.”[i]This set a precedent that has had its share of ups and downs in court throughout history.

For example, in the case of Rizo v. Yovino, Fresno County, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in 2018 that it was in fact a violation of the Equal Pay Act for Fresno County Public Schools to have a policy in which new hires were paid the same salary as their last job plus 5%.[ii]Judge Stephen Reinhardt’s majority opinion at the time focused on how “salaries speak louder than words” and how basing one’s current salary on prior salary only continues to perpetuate the gender pay gap. This was a major win for equal pay advocates but Reinhardt died before the decision was published and the Supreme Court later invalidated the 6-5 decision by ruling that his vote could not be counted. [iii]

More recently, in 2020, the Third U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a law meant to close the wage gap that was passed in the city of Philadelphia, making it illegal for employers to look into a prospective employee’s wage history at all in

Chamber of Commerce for Greater Philadelphia v. City of Philadelphia.[iv]

These two cases are a good example of how this fight for equal pay has had its share of setbacks (for good reasons or not) but often there is some give and take depending on how certain aspects are interpreted.

The soccer team’s case takes on a different hue because of the presence of a thorny issue—collective bargaining. Judge R. Gary Klausner, who wrote the majority decision in the women’s case,cited terms from a collective bargaining agreement that was agreed upon in 2017—one that midfielder and outspoken voice Megan Rapinoe stated the Women’s Nation Team Players Association should be proud of[v]—as the reasons for his judgement. More specifically, Klausner stated the women’s team chose to forgo higher bonuses in exchange for other benefits such as being able to have more players under contract and they cannot now state after the fact, that the were not treated fairly as that is what they agreed to at the time.[vi]

Over the years,collective bargaining has come to be associated with what is often referred to as the “Factors Other than Sex Defense.”[vii] This moniker takes its name from the sentence that ends the previously mentioned section 6(d)(1) of the original Equal Pay Act. That sentence rounds out the original “No employer shall discriminate…” statement cited above by saying that “factors other than sex” can be exceptions to the rules that are outlined in the Act.

The Act lists a seniority system, a merit system,and a system which measures earnings by quantity or quality of production as possible exceptions.i The United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s Compliance Manual, which dates from 2000, goes into greater detail by listing in its section 10 on “Compensation Discrimination” ten additional “defenses” that could be identified as “factors other than sex” and collective bargaining is one of them.[viii]The U.S. Soccer Federation has claimed as defenses several of these listed factors over the past year including differences in revenue production,[ix] and the idea of a merit system stemming from the fact that the women received greater aggregated pay since they played more and higher tier matches than the men.  

Sticking with collective bargaining though, specific cases in which the issue of a collective bargaining agreement has come in conflict with the Equal Pay Act are few in comparison to some of the other factors listed. In point of fact, Title 29, Chapter XIV, section 1620.23 of the Code of Federal Regulations (entitled “Labor”) explicitly states “Any and all provisions in a collective bargaining agreement which provide unequal rates of pay in conflict with the requirements of the EPA are null and void and of no effect.”[x] The EEOC manual echoes the language of Title 29. Moreover, deeper in the original Equal Pay Act, it states “No labor organization…. representing employees of an employer having employees subject to any provisions of this section shall cause or attempt to cause such an employer to discriminate against an employee in violation of paragraph (1) of this subsection.”Paragraph 1, of course in this case refers to the original “No employer shall discriminate on the basis of sex” section.

As a statement of facts,the verbiage in these laws contradicts what Judge Klausner wrote in his decision. According to the documents mentioned above, the terms of a CBA cannot be a defense against unequal pay. Even then Molly Levinson, a spokesperson for the women’s camp, claimed in a tweet published May 9, that the women only accepted the 2017 CBA because the U.S. Soccer Federation would not discuss equal pay, and they then accepted the best deal possible. [xi]

At the same time, if US Soccer does not want to follow this path laid by Klausner and instead wants to stick to a defense like the one they provided in a statement following initial allegations of discrimination in March 2019--stating that differences in pay related to differences in revenue produced by each team--“they might be able to justify this.”vi In saying this, EEOC manual cites Byrd v. Ronayne, a 1995 case decided in the First U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that found a male lawyer was justified in receiving higher pay because he generated more revenue for his firm. That case that has many similarities to the case between soccer teams in question here and, in short, this all illustrates the multiple ways in which the “Factors Other than Sex Defense” can be applied by U.S. Soccer.  

The women filed an appeal on May 8.

________________________________________________________________

[i]The Equal Pay Act of 1963. (1963). Retrieved from U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission: Statutes website: https://www.eeoc.gov/statutes/equal-pay-act-1963

[ii]Chappell, B. (2018, April 10). The Equal Pay Act of 1963. Retrieved from National Public Radio website: https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/04/10/601096889/women-cant-have-prior-salaries-used-against-them-court-says-in-equal-pay-case

[iii]ON PETITION FOR WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT (18–272). (2019, February 25). Retrieved from The Supreme Court of the United States website: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/18pdf/18-272_4hdj.pdf

[iv]Grossman, J. (2020, February 11). A Win for Equal Pay: The Third Circuit Court of Appeals Upholds A Law Designed to Address Wage Gap. Retrieved from Justia website: https://verdict.justia.com/2020/02/11/a-win-for-equal-pay-the-third-circuit-court-of-appeals-upholds-a-law-designed-to-address-wage-gap

[v]Hays, G. (2017, April 5). U.S. Soccer, women's national team ratify new CBA. Retrieved from ESPN website: https://www.espn.com/espnw/sports/story/_/id/19082314/us-soccer-women-national-team-ratify-new-cba

[vi]Gardner, E. (2020, May 4). In U.S. Soccer Ruling, Judge Shows Why "Equal Pay" Can Be Elusive. Retrieved from Hollywood Reporter website: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/us-soccer-ruling-judge-shows-why-equal-pay-can-be-elusive-1293066

[vii]CLOSING THE “FACTOR OTHER THAN SEX” LOOPHOLE IN THE EQUAL PAY ACT. (2011, April 4). Retrieved from National Women's Law Center website: https://www.nwlc.org/sites/default/files/pdfs/4.11.11_factor_other_than_sex_fact_sheet_update.pdf

[viii]EEOC Compliance Manual: Section 10 Compensation Discrimination. (2000, December 5). Retrieved from United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission website: https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/guidance/section-10-compensation-discrimination#N_74_

[ix]U.S. Soccer Formally Denies Claims of Gender Discrimination in Response to USWNT. (2019, May 7). Retrieved from Sports Illustrated website: https://www.si.com/soccer/2019/05/07/us-soccer-uswnt-lawsuit-gender-discrimination-equal-pay-response

[x]Electronic Code of Federal Regulations: Title 29. (2014). Retrieved from Cornell Law School Legal Information Institute website: https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/29/1620.23

[xi]O'Mard, M. (2020, May 9). USWNT Appeals Dismissal Of Equal Pay Lawsuit Vs. U.S. Soccer Federation . Retrieved from New England Sports Network website: https://nesn.com/2020/05/uswnt-appeals-dismissal-of-equal-pay-lawsuit-vs-u-s-soccer-federation/