#while women's clothing is often designed for objects to exist in. except those objects are our bodies

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

in my hearts of hearts I so deeply believe in the importance of more women shopping in the men's clothing section. particularly gender conforming cis women. hear me out:

pockets. pockets pockets pockets. huge pockets. even in skinny jeans and short shorts. pockets are high priority in men's clothes, and designers are not willing to sacrifice them unless absolutely necessary. even the pajamas and swimsuits have pockets big enough to hold your phone. the audacity

better quality & value. men's clothing is consistently made to last longer. you will find better fabric quality, craftsmanship, and general durability in the men's section.

"men's" clothes might fit you better. clothing is way more gender neutral than you've been taught to think. for dresses and stuff you'll still need the women's section, but you'd be surprised at how well "men's" pants, shorts, shirts, and jackets can fit different bodies. in fact, I would go so far as to say that men's clothes are designed to fit a wider variety of body sizes and shapes than women's clothes. if you are one of the many many women who don't fit the ridiculous cookie cutter mold of modern women's fashion, you may very well have better luck in the men's section.

(this includes people with big chests! being designed for broader shoulders also translates into extra tiddy storage space.)

(plus, universal sizing systems based on your actual measurements.) (pro tip for shorter folks: cuffing or hemming pants is the easiest alteration in the world. you can literally just use safety pins.)

you can still find "feminine" things. it's becoming easier & easier to find "men's" clothes in the bright colors/patterns, tighter fits, and shorter hems traditionally associated with women's fashion. shorts are particularly great--you can find lots of mid-thigh versions that are almost identical to women's shorts, but with bigger pockets and a little more coverage.

(also, as most trans people are already aware, people are pretty eager to assume that everyone around them is cis. I guarantee that you'd be shocked at how many people won't realize you're wearing "men's" clothes. they'll just see a women wearing clothing that fits.)

bonus: it's easier to find stuff that's not see-through/doesn't show bra straps. the irony of this is deeply insulting.

in general clothing manufacturers feel able to pull way more bullshit on female customers. a great way to tell them to FUCK OFF is by spending your money elsewhere. your life will become much comfier in the process!

WARNING: consistently shopping in the men's section may accustom you to new levels of comfort and lack of body-conciousness, and make it difficult for you to return to shopping in the women's section. you may find yourself no longer able to put up with previously normalized levels of bullshit. you may find yourself sewing huge pockets into skirts & dresses, because that is the new baseline you demand of all your outfits. these symptoms may become even more pronounced if you start wearing supportive wide-toed walking shoes.

[pamphletstoinspire]

July, The Month Dedicated to the Most Precious Blood

THE SIXTEEN CARMELITE MARTYRS OF COMPIEGNE

The French Revolution reveals the titanic struggle between good and evil. During the terror, over 40,000 Frenchmen were executed just for holding fast to the Catholic Faith and objecting to the worst excesses of the Committee of Public Safety. The blood lost in the years of 1792-1794 staggers the imagination even in the retelling and the campaign against the Church was as diabolical as it was cruel.

Contemplative religious communities had been among the first targets of the fury of the French Revolution against the Catholic Church. Less than a year from May 1789 when the Revolution began with the meeting of the Estates-General, these communities had been required by law to disband. But many of them continued in being, in hiding. Among these were the community of the Carmelite nuns of Compiegne, in northeastern France not far from Paris -- the fifty-third convent in France of the Carmelite sisters who followed the reform of  St. Teresa of Avila, founded in 1641, noted throughout its history for fidelity and fervor. Their convent was raided in August 1790, all the property of the sisters was seized by the government, and they were forced to discard their habits and leave their house. They divided into four groups which found lodging in four different houses all near the same church in Compiegne, and for several years they were to a large extent able to continue their religious life in secret. But the intensified surveillance and searches of the "Great Terror" revealed their secret, and in June 1794 most of them were arrested and imprisoned.

They had expected this; indeed, they had prayed for it. At some time during the summer of 1792, very likely just after the events of August 10 of that year that marked the descent into the true deeps of the Revolution, their prioress, Madeleine Lidoine, whose name in religion was Teresa in honor of the founder of their order, by all accounts a charming perceptive, and highly intelligent woman, had foreseen much of what was to come. At Easter of 1792, she told her community that, while looking through the archives she had found the account of a dream a Carmelite had in 1693. In that dream, the Sister saw the whole Community, with the exception of 2 or 3 Sisters, in glory and called to follow the Lamb. In the mind of the Prioress, this meant martyrdom and might well be a prophetic announcement of their fate.

Mother Teresa had said to her sisters: "Having meditated much on this subject, I have thought of making an act of consecration by which the Community would offer itself as a sacrifice to appease the anger of God, so that the divine peace of His Dear Son would be brought into the world, returned to the Church and the state." The sisters discussed her proposal and all agreed to it but the two oldest, who were hesitant. But when the news of the September massacres came, mingling glorious martyrdom with apostasy, these two sisters made their choice, joining their commitment to that of the rest of the community. All made their offering; it was to be accepted.

After their lodgings were invaded again in June, their devotional objects shattered and their tabernacle trampled underfoot by a Revolutionary who told them that their place of worship should be transformed into a dog kennel, the Carmelite sisters were taken to the Conciergerie prison, where so many of the leading victims of the guillotine had been held during their last days on earth. There they composed a canticle for their martyrdom, to be sung to the familiar tune of the Marseillaise. The original still exists, written in pencil and given to one of their fellow prisoners, a lay woman who survived.

Give over our hearts to joy, the day of glory has arrived, Far from us all weakness, seeing the standard come; We prepare for the victory, we all march to the true conquest, Under the flag of the dying God we run, we all seek the glory; Rekindle our ardor, our bodies are the Lord's, We climb, we climb the scaffold and give ourselves back to the Victor.

O happiness ever desired for Catholics of France, To follow the wondrous road Already marked out so often by the martyrs toward their suffering, After Jesus with the King, we show our faith to Christians, We adore a God of justice; as the fervent priest, the constant faithful, Seal, seal with all their blood faith in the dying God....

Holy Virgin, our model, August queen of martyrs, deign to strengthen our zeal And purify our desires, protect France even yet, help; us mount to Heaven, Make us feel even in these places, the effects of your power. Sustain your children, Submissive, obedient, dying, dying with Jesus and in our King believing.

On July 17 the sixteen sisters were brought before Fouquier-Tinville. All cases were now being disposed of within twenty-four hours as Robespierre had wished; theirs was no exception. They were charged with having received arms for the emigres; their prioress, Sister Teresa, answered by holding up a crucifix.

 "Here are the only arms that we have ever had in our house."

They were charged with possessing an altar-cloth with designs honoring the old monarchy (perhaps the fleur-de-lis) and were asked  to deny any attachment to the royal family. Sister Teresa responded: "If that is a crime, we are all guilty of it; you can never tear out of our hearts the attachment for Louis XVI and his family. Your laws cannot prohibit feeling; they cannot extend their empire to the affections of the soul; God alone has the right to judge them." They were charged with corresponding with priests forced to leave the country because they would not take the constitutional oath; they freely admitted this. Finally they were charged with the catchall indictment by which any serious Catholic in France could be guillotined during the Terror: "fanaticism." Sister Henriette, who had been Gabrielle de Croissy, challenged Fouguier-Tinvile to his face:

"Citizen, it is your duty to respond to the request of one condemned; I call upon you to answer us and to tell us just what you mean by the word 'fanatic.'" 

"I mean," snapped the Public Prosecutor of the Terror, "your attachment to your childish beliefs and your silly religious practices."

"Let us rejoice, my dear Mother and Sisters, in the joy of the Lord," said Sister Henriette, "that we shall die for our holy religion, our faith, our confidence in the Holy Roman Catholic Church."

While in prison, they asked and were granted permission to wash their clothes. As they had only one set of lay clothes, they put on their religious habit and set to the task. Providentially, the revolutionaries picked that "wash day" for their transfer to Paris. As their clothes were soaking wet, the Carmelites left for Paris wearing their "outlawed" religious habit. They celebrated the feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel in prison, wondering whether they would die that day.

It was only the next day they went to the guillotine. The journey in the carts took more than an hour. All the way the Carmelite sisters sang: the "Miserere," "Salve Regina," and "Te Deum." Beholding them, a total silence fell on the raucous, brutal crowd, most of them cheapened and hardened by day after day of the spectacle of public slaughter. At the foot of the towering killing machine, their eyes raised to Heaven, the sisters sang "Veni Creator Spiritus." One by one, they renewed their religious vows. They pardoned their executioners. One observer cried out: "Look at them and see if they do not have the air of angels! By my faith, if these women did not all go straight to Paradise, then no one is there!"

Sister Teresa, their prioress, requested and obtained permission to go last under the knife. The youngest, Sister Constance, went first. She climbed the steps of the guillotine "With the air of a queen going to receive her crown," singing Laudate Dominum omnes gentes, "all peoples praise the Lord." She placed her head in the position for death without allowing the executioner to touch her. Each sister followed her example, those remaining singing likewise with each, until only the prioress was left, holding in her hand a small figure of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The killing of each martyr required about two minutes. It was about eight o'clock in the evening, still bright at midsummer. During the whole time the profound silence of the crowd about the guillotine endured unbroken.

Two years before when the horror began, the Carmelite community at Compiegne had offered itself as a holocaust, that peace might be restored to France and the Church.

The return of full peace was still twenty-one years in the future. But the Reign of Terror had only ten days left to run.

Years of war, oppression and persecution were yet to come, but the mass official killing in the public squares of Paris was about to end. The Cross had vanquished the guillotine.  These sixteen holy Carmelite nuns have all been beatified by our Holy Father, the Pope, [Pope St. Pius X, 27 May 1906] which is the last step before canonization.

Blessed Carmelites of Compiegne, pray for us!

[twentiethcenturymoviesandtv]

The Princess Bride: A Product of the Times

The 1980s were an age of surplus in terms of just about everything.  From the music and clothes to the explosions on screen, the 1980s were a clear example of excess, of wealth of ideas and resources, and nowhere was it more obvious than in the movie industry.

From teen films to comedies to blockbuster action extravaganzas, the 1980s movie industry, led by directors like Steven Spielberg, James Cameron, Richard Donner and more, brought a combination style of ‘throwback’ + innovation to many of their films.  Movies like Star Wars and Indiana Jones directly imitated and updated sci-fi and adventure serials from Spielberg and George Lucas’s youth, whereas films like Joe Dante’s Gremlins poked fun at ‘50s B-Movie horror movies. John Carpenter’s The Thing provided an updated look at a classic monster flick, and his The Fog called back to plenty older ghost stories, while making something new of his own.  Although the 1980s was a period of exploration in film, with new genres being pioneered and explored in different directions, part of that exploration included looking backward and experimenting with previously existing genres, with the up and coming generation of ‘Movie Brat’ directors choosing to play with elements they’d grown up knowing and loving themselves.

That extended to the fantasy genre.

From the pulpy style of the Low Fantasy Conan the Barbarian films to the magical feeling of movies like Labyrinth or Willow, the 1980s theaters experienced a major boom in terms of fantasy films, experiencing varying levels of success.  From Excalibur to Legend, these new fantasy films took risks with special effects, methods of storytelling, and styles of characters (although lots of them became known as Cliche Storms).   These movies utilized unique spins on fairy-tale stories and legends, updating and modernizing aspects of them and either making them darker, or finding new ways to acknowledge the fantastical elements of the story.

Most interesting is that, in the 1980s, the fantasy genre didn’t have a whole lot of history to draw from.

Unlike the B-Sci-Fi flicks from the ‘50s or the Creature Features, or even the adventure serials that would go on to spark Indiana Jones, there wasn’t a lot of previous canon in the fantasy genre.  Films like The Wizard of Oz, which were landmarks in the genre, didn’t have a whole lot of obvious influence on the sword-and-sorcery films that came afterwards.

Now, you may be asking why all of this matters.  Or why any of it matters, in fact.

Here’s the thing: no film is an island.  Every movie, (some more than others) is directly influenced by the culture it exists in, and the pool of resources that have come before it, especially in the cases of the films directly designed to emulate genres or specific movies that have already been made.

And that certainly seems to have been the case, at least partially, as far as The Princess Bride is concerned.

Despite being released in the 1980s, with the original book by William Goldman written in 1973, The Princess Bride doesn’t wholly read like it’s contemporaries in the fantasy genre.  If you watch it alongside the likes of Ladyhawke, Labyrinth, and Legend, you’ll find that more about the film stands out other than not following my alliterative pattern.

In many of the other fairy-tale-esque stories populating Hollywood during this decade, the characters talk and act very much like they are in a very grand story.  There is gravity to the situation and most of the characters, (exception being some of the creatures in Labyrinth) and the story is typically an epic one.

The Princess Bride, on the other hand, manages to avoid this tone and story structure, by including a very traditional fairy-tale plot: save the princess from the evil prince, but by going about it using styles more typical of a different era entirely.

Rather than using the fantasy, action, or even adventure styles traditionally used by the 1980s, The Princess Bride utilized something a little earlier: the swashbuckling style of the 1930s.

Due to the way that the story and characters are written (with a sharp, sly, tongue-in-cheek edge), The Princess Bride cannot be played as a straight fantasy film (check out the Genre article to hear more), and while it does retain plenty of the 1980s charm about it, it also uses the fast-dialogue and witty humor found in stories like The Adventures of Robin Hood and other swashbuckler stories from that decade of adventure films.  Watching the fencing match between Inigo Montoya and Westley is eerily similar to many such fight scenes in older action-adventure movies, and listening to the dialogue during this and other sequences, the humorous tone with dry, quick wit, is also an echo of older screwball-style dialogue.

Whether this was intentional or not, the fact is, this makes The Princess Bride’s style very fresh and new in the middle of the fantasy boom of the 1980s.  It also had a very interesting side effect:

It made The Princess Bride ‘timeless’.

The idea of something being ‘timeless’ is an interesting topic in the film world.  

The word ‘timeless’ is best defined as ‘not affected by the passage of time or changes in fashion’.  It carries the implication that, applied to film, a ‘timeless’ movie would be one totally understandable and relatable years after the culture has changed.  Carried further, the ideal ‘timeless’ movie would be one with no cultural identity of its own, completely orphaned from the original context that the story originated in.  In other words, this is a story that can be enjoyed no matter how much time has passed.  Typically, this word gets applied to period stories, sci-fi films, or fantasies: stories not set in the contemporary time period.  

In direct contrast, of course, the word ‘dated’ is simply used to apply to anything created in a discernible time period.  This word typically carries the connotation of ‘old-fashioned’.  This word’s connotation is that, (applied to film) a ‘dated’ film is one that is less understandable by those looking from outside that particular culture or time period.  This would be a film that hasn’t ‘aged well’, most often describing contemporary films of the day.

So, here’s the thing.

These definitions, while technically correct, are far more complex than this in the film world.  

By the dictionary definition, no film is truly timeless.  Every film is a product of the times they were created in, because people who lived in those times created them.  Every movie, every piece of media are products of the times they are from, but they are not defined by them.  A film is not ‘dated’ because it shows the culture, or the technology of its time, or uses that technology when trying to create the world of the movie itself.  A movie is not dated because it uses puppets instead of CGI.  

As I mentioned, a film is considered ‘dated’ in a true sense if it is less understandable or enjoyable in hindsight, from a place outside of that specific culture.  Less easily overlooked are ideas, and here’s what truly does date a movie.

It really doesn’t matter if a film is made in the ‘70s and set in the far future, or made in the ‘50s and set in the distant past, because quite frankly, the movie is still being made in that decade.  As a result, even period films end up carrying the thumbprint of the contemporary ideas of the people who made it.  Indiana Jones is best remembered as an ‘80s style action hero because although his films are set in the 1930s and made in the style of adventure serials from that time period, the style of action and characterization was very current, in order to update the genre.

The ideas and thematic core of a film, how certain topics and characters are treated and viewed, both in universe and in the narrative, can be what truly dates a film, even if it has none of the recognizable trimmings like a tie-dye shirt, and here’s where we can tread into good vs. bad territory: because while in some cases, the ideas can be pleasantly positive, in others, the opinions presented by the filmmakers can be rather uncomfortable to modern audiences.

So, all of this is to lead us to an important question:

Is The Princess Bride timeless, or at least, as timeless as movies can get?

Well, some would argue no.

A glaring problem with modern movie-goers is the character of Buttercup, who, as I mentioned in the ‘Characters’ article, really doesn’t do much apart from getting passed-around, fought over and protected.  Admittedly, especially to a generation used to Princess Leias, Marion Ravenwoods, and even Lilis, Buttercup seems largely useless, relegating the only woman of the film (aside from Valerie, Miracle Max’s wife) to a plot device, an object without much personality.

To a lot of moviegoers, this is pretty blatantly bad representation: there are two named women in the movie, and one of them has less than five minutes of screen time, and the other essentially exists as nothing other than the title of the film.  The film also employs a distinctly monochrome cast, another element that can lead to people pointing to a different era of Hollywood, one that didn’t tend to focus on that kind of representation, or in the case of Buttercup, borderline problematic representation.  

There are other moments of issues: Westley’s line about ‘there are penalties when a woman lies’ and his berating her for ‘moving on’ and getting married when she’d long thought him dead might rub modern moviegoers the wrong way.

In the end, though, is this…a problem?  A detriment to enjoyment of the movie as a whole?  Do these elements actively work against the movie in a modern environment?

Well…yes and no.

It is true that now, films are making an active step towards more diverse representation, and that is certainly a good thing.  Many movies now are also including more female characters with stronger characters than the distressed plot-devices of old.  Heck, even other movies of the 1980s were instituting more ethnic diversity and female characters with more agency in films like Aliens, Baby Boom, The Color Purple and Willow.  

Looking back, it can be easy to wince at those moments in The Princess Bride and make the assumption that the film was just being outdated because of when it was made, or due to the ‘fantasy’ period, or even because it’s deliberately utilizing story elements from 1930s films, but in the end, those elements don’t actively hurt the narrative.

Female characters don’t have to be sword-wielders like Sorsha from Willow, or Silk-Hiding-Steel like Isabeau from Ladyhawke.  Princesses don’t have to always take over their own rescues.  In the end, there’s more support for female characters in the variety offered by the 1980s rather than the eradication of any weak female characters whatsoever, because as it turns out, some women are weak, just as some are strong.  (It would have been nice if the weak character wasn’t the only female one, though.)

Is The Princess Bride progressive?  Well, no, not really, but it’s not regressive, either.  It doesn’t actively serve as detriment to the film to notice these things, not in the same way that other movies experience backlash for outright sexist and racist content.  As it stands, The Princess Bride is an excellent movie that manages to stand the test of time because it is so ridiculously fairy-tale-esque.  As I said before, the old-fashioned story and dialogue paired with the budget and technology of a 1980s film (except for the ROUS, which is charmingly unbelievable) manages to create something similar to George Lucas’s Star Wars trilogy: a film that is as removed from its cultural context as a piece of media can be (aside from the Grandson’s bedroom decor).

It is potentially largely this element, this aspect of borderline ‘timelessness’ that has allowed The Princess Bride to stand as a forgotten, overlooked classic for over thirty years.  That, combined with the genuine warmth, humor, and passion of the film itself, will allow it to continue to stand for far longer, as long as we keep telling our children fairy-tales.

Don’t forget to leave a comment, like, or some other form of love if you enjoyed this analysis, and please, follow for more articles like this!  Thanks so much for reading, and I hope to see you in the next article.

[lisaontheroadagain]

On Tokyo

Everything here seems to function as it was meant to. Trains, traffic, pedestrians. Despite 13 million people inhabiting metropolitan Tokyo, I witness no jay walking, no traffic jams. In five days, I literally hear someone honk their horn once. Everywhere I go people seem patient, waiting in single files lines, for restaurants, for elevators, for buses and trains. When the train arrives, notoriously on time, the train car aligns perfectly with markings on the ground, the commuters quietly stand in two single file lines on the side of the car doors until everyone exiting has deboarded, then enter themselves, quickly, orderly. On the escalators, everyone stands to the left, so those walking more quickly have free passage on the right. On the streets, everyone walks to the left, keeping to their own lane, staying off the raised yellow tile navigation system of lines and dots for the blind, a kind of braille for the feet. The whole of Tokyo seems like a well-oiled machine, each denizen aware they are a cog in a larger system, willing to play their part.

I count five pieces of trash on the ground in five days of walking my way through Tokyo. Despite walls of boarded panels covering up construction, not a single one is grimied with the familiar markings of a graffiti tag. I see no homeless people, except for a small tent city under the train tracks in Shinjuku. Each denizen has a large cardboard box, taped into perfect orderly rectangles and squares of varying sizes with thick blue tape. Pairs of shoes sit neatly outside, even the homeless feeling enough dignity not to sully their makeshift home with dirty shoes.

Every toilet has a bidet. Most have heated seats. Some of them have “privacy” buttons where the sounds of chirping birds or crashing waves will play loudly enough to hide whatever squeeches and pffts want to work their way out of your body. Even in train stations the toilet paper is so often folded into neat triangles, I wonder if it’s an anonymous origami gesture from whoever peed there before. Every seat is clean and dry, the floor of every stall without a single stray piece of ply.

I never see a single Japanese person in yoga pants or casual “comfy” clothes. Everyone looks like they have a stylist. Perfectly manicured and coifed, fashionable, in sync with the latest trends, attention paid to every inch of their look from the tips of their nails to the lace lining on their ankle socks. I feel self-conscious of my messy wave of curls, the stray frizzy hairs out of place, the bra strap occasionally slipping into view. The masses of passerbys – both men and women – create a dizzying scape of haute chic, a magazine spread come to life, each individual worthy of their own page. Some are more alternative, gothic punk, “kawaii” cute, Anime cosplay, Lolita-esque life-sized dolls with contacts to make their irises the size of a cartoon. But everyone – everyone – looks to have thought carefully about their look for the day.

I am astounded by the attention to detail. In the fashion, the interior design, the service, the food. Every plate, every chopstick, every corner of every room, every morsel of every meal, the size of the ice cube, the shape of the cup, the type of flower in the vase. It all seems chosen, intentional. Remarkable, more for what is not there than what is – the finesse is in the editing, the negative space. Everything is an elegant composition. An homage to efficiency. Even the signage in the public bathrooms, perfectly clear instructions in any language, to sit, not squat, to put toilet paper in the toilet and everything else in the trash. The organization of the train station, each car of the subway, each exit of the station, with its own number, so you know where to stand, where to walk, to exit closest to your destination. Someone has thought about this in advance, someone cared deeply about my experience of the bathroom, my experience of the train. In Shinto, the Japanese religion, everything has its own spirit – the trees, the rocks, the leaves – every object meriting respect. I can feel the dignity with which objects are treated here, the care with which they are imbued. It makes me want to slow down and pay more attention to the details in my life, to have fewer, nicer objects, worthy of my care.

We, too, are treated with the same dignity and care. Everywhere we go we are greeted with the utmost courtesy and respect. Everyone wants to please us, to make us feel honored. We are thanked and bowed to so many times entering and exiting an establishment, I feel awkward and embarrassed by the attention. They bow and I bow back and they bow again and I bow again, unsure when we can politely stop. Almost everyone is incredibly kind, helpful. But almost no one is friendly. There is so much respect I feel trapped behind a wall, simultaneously welcomed in and completely shut out.

I get frustrated by the persistent pleasing. When I ask our travel guide for advice on what to do for the day, she doesn’t give me a straight answer. She is shy, uncomfortable giving her opinion, searching for clues of what she thinks I want her to say.

I get exhausted by the intensity of Tokyo. The nonstop onslaught of people, places. The streets show no letting up, no reprieve. Buildings are stacked 9 levels high with businesses, neon signs in foreign symbols piling on top of each other, stretching into the sky. Shops and restaurants upon shops and restaurants, packed with people, ten story fashion malls seemingly on every block, with sprawling basement food halls hawking perfectly curated bento boxes, wildly expensive single pieces of fruit, beautiful pastries, gleaming sushi, slices of marbled wagyu, yakatori skewers, tonkatsu, onigiri, karaage, donburi, mochi, and on and on. More shops and restaurants fill the train stations, floors of underground malls beneath the tracks. Vending machines line every spare inch of street side real estate, a brightly lit convenient store on every corner, all busy inside. The constancy of the commercialism is crushing. I can barely breath.

Until we step inside and off the streets. The whirring of the city in unceasing motion quiets as the door shuts, giving way to an oasis of calm. Inside the restaurant, or teahouse, or bar, with just six seats, maybe twelve, it is jarringly serene. Like the clothes they wear and the food they serve, the design has been flawlessly fashioned. A single flower arranged inside a bud vase to arch perfectly over the bar. A shelf with perfectly arranged sets of cups, liquor bottles placed side by side, an exacting two inches apart. A set of rattan baskets, one arranged neatly by my seat as a receptacle for my purse. I am greeted kindly, in sync, by all of the staff. Then it is quiet, no music, perhaps a few hushed voices, speaking in low conversation. Time stands still inside. Tokyo, outside of this one room, ceases to exist. Here is serenity. I could stay for hours, barely remembering there is anywhere else.

For a while I’m grateful for the respite. To know that whenever I need, there is a nearby establishment I can escape into for a moment of peace. But then even the quiet begins to suffocate. If outside is chaotic order of overwhelming magnitude, inside is delicately crafted, oppressive calm. Though seemingly opposites, they are but versions of the same strive for perfection, two different expressions of the same exquisite restraint, varying functions of the same set of rigid rules. I want to scream. I want to throw my beautiful plate of pea tofu with sea urchin foam and a single curled carrot strip at the walls. I want to claw my way out of the suffocating precision and tear my hair and jump up and down headbanging to Rage Against the Machine. I suddenly think I have insight into the high rates of suicide, the infamous lack of sexual desire, the fascination with violent manga and tentacle rape porn. I think I get the escape into virtual worlds, the otaku obsessionism, the gritty shibari/BDSM scene. After only a few days I need an outlet for my individuality, a place to express my energy, a way to kindle my life force before it quakes beneath the conformity.

In the middle of all this, I find myself eating a 14-course meal at a restaurant called Inua that won best new restaurant of the year. Each dish is spectacular, creative, colorful, beautiful, an homage to the nature from which its components came. One dish – a sort of savory sweet fruit rollup created from local plums, laid like an artwork on a piece of honeycomb inside a wooden frame, baked with edible flowers and a variety of herbs – somehow tastes simultaneously new and familiar, exotic and comforting. It is so beautifully plated, so magical and delightful and whimsical in concept, so confounding in its flavors, it awakens all my senses and reminds me how exciting it can be to exist in a human body that is able to see and smell and hear and touch and – above all, in this moment – to taste. To taste! I am so humbled by the dish and the experience the chef created for me in this bite of food I am moved to tears.

I find myself at TeamLab: Borderless, an immersive digital art museum filled with wide halls and hidden rooms of moving images. Ceiling to floor digital sunflowers, a parade of traditionally-drawn 6 foot bunnies I can follow across the walls of the entire exhibit, a room filled with lanterns that grow brighter or dimmer based on the proximity of its viewers, fields of digitally lit lily pads, floral tigers and elephants stampeding by, screens of digitally dripping water that change their flow pattern when I interrupt them with my hand. It is a maze of art work that responds to me, knows that I am there, is changed by my presence, allows me to become part of it. I watch a four-minute experience known as the Cave Universe, a dance of birds flying in such dizzying immersive beauty that I feel like I’m doing somersaults, turned inside out, unsure which direction is up. I lose my balance, assure myself I haven’t done any drugs. It is so thrilling, a rollercoaster ride standing still, I watch it at least four more times.

I find myself in the middle of Tokyo’s busy streets, six inches off the ground in a red and yellow go cart, wearing a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle onesie. It is the most fun way I’ve ever explored a new city, wind in my face, foot on the gas pedal; there is an immediacy to the experience I immediately love. Plus, we are clearly bringing joy to hundreds of pedestrians as we whiz by. They are waving, taking pictures. I feel adored. Like I am famous. I am delighted seeing their demeanors change, serious grimaces and blank stares breaking out into huge smiles, excited eyes, when they see us pass. Hordes of school girls make heart shapes on their heads for us to mimic back, business men in taxis roll down their windows to say konichiwa. It is the first time I feel a bridge to the Japanese people that isn’t completely shrouded in politeness and etiquette.

Thankfully it isn’t the last. We bond with our bartender in the tiny ten seat bar, one of 200 in the Golden Gai. He speaks almost no English, but he pours good Japanese Whiskey, and he smiles and makes charade-style jokes like we’re old friends. The chef at our Michelin starred sushi restaurant stands in front of us and makes us nigiri piece by piece, telling us about a day in his life, waking up at 4am to go to the fish market, living on three hours of sleep per night, smiling and laughing, eating up our experience of his meal like we eat up his fish, clearly devoting his life to the thing he loves. The owner and waitress at the neighborhood soba shop teach us how to slurp soba and ask our help translating a few lines on their menu, giggling at the fact “beefsteak plant” actually means “shiso leaf.” But so far these experiences have been the exception rather than the rule.

The language barrier certainly makes things challenging; not many people speak English well. But it feels like it’s more than that. I have a sneaking suspicion that, like most everything else here, the distance is intentional. We are here, as tourists, as their revered and honored guests, and they our venerable hosts. It is not lip service – service is an art form here, completely genuine, a great source of pride. The formalities, they are the tools of the trade, a signal of how seriously they take their hosting, how important the exchange. And yet, I can’t help feeling the politeness is also obscuring something more. What? Whatever the “real” Tokyo might be? I am not sure. All I feel is the wall. This sense there is something else I can’t yet see, some way I can’t yet connect. It leaves me feeling lonely. Isolated. Hungry for meaningful interaction. Yearning for depth. I am craving authenticity. Personality. Someone more themselves than they are pleasing. Someone who will tell me like it really is. I can’t help but wonder what this city would be like if I had a way in, someone who could show me behind the courtesies…because there must be something behind the courtesies...right?

Perhaps the next time I am here, for I feel fairly certain this won’t be the last. Until then, we board a train for the countryside, leaving Tokyo behind….

[sharingshane-blog]

Why the Bloody Hell a Christian!?

I am religious, self-identifying Christian.  This part of me has had significant influence in whom I am today.  It is not something that I discuss often; yet, it is also not something I keep secret either.  It does usually take people by surprise to learn this fact about me.  I just finished writing a blog post about one of my idols, Emma Goldman, who was a staunch atheist.  I am transgender and bisexual, and I believe it is okay for me to live fully and authentically as myself.  I have date men, women, and non-binary folks happily and without remorse.  I am a steadfast leftist and a large critic of the church not just in the United States but around the world too.  I am also a critic of organized religion in general. I usually advice against looking for savior figures.  That is in part how dictators come to power.  I have extremely close atheist and agnostic friends.  I also have Muslim, Jewish, and even Satanist friends. I have also suffered abuse and ostracization from my church growing up which contributed to a lot of the psychological issues that I possess today.  I do also agree that the Bible does contain homophobic, ethnocentric, sexist, and genocidal content.  It also contains slave apology, human sacrifices, and rape defenses.  So, the question that may be running through your head at this point may be, “Why would you identify as a Christian?”

Well, let me start with why I do not talk about my Christian faith that often.  It is rooted solely in the way people perceive me when I talk about my faith than what I say about my faith.  Since Christianity is so mainstream in the United States, there is already widespread knowledge about the basics of the religion.  When Christians give out little booklets saying, “Did you know Jesus—?” it comes off like they are insulting the intelligence of anyone who is not perceived to be with the “in-group.”  I think sometimes many Christians lose sight of the fact that anyone outside their small group of other think-alike Christians are just as human and capable of cogitative reasoning as them.  Many people outside the realm of Christianity know the basic tenets of the Christian faith, and many even know and understand the Bible better than most self-identifying Christians.  Evangelism in the sense of educating people about the basics of the faith is essentially unnecessary in the United States, and I want to avoid coming off as an evangelist to other people.  When I speak about my faith, I do not want others to perceive me as that evangelist.  I want to communicate that I believe they are intelligent individuals with their own interpretations of spirituality that are completely based on valid perspectives of the world.  It is demeaning and degrading the way most Christians interact with others outside their little Christian in-group.  

Furthermore, there is a level of stigma growing against Christians on the left.  I am a leftist and potentially communist even.  Most of my friends are self-identified as atheist or agnostic.  Also, many of them have dealt with real abuse from the church in the past.  This is also true of my LGBTQ+ friends.  Unfortunately, in these groups, sometimes I must minimize my references to the Bible because it could potentially trigger traumatizing memories.  I can empathize since have also experienced trauma from the church, and I have a difficult time with Christianized language and contemporary worship music. I rather speak of Christianity in a deep philosophical way or in an extremely pragmatic way.  Enough with the bullshit abstract concepts with no explanation redundantly displayed in every single church!  I get that Jesus loves me, a basic tenet of Christianity.  But what does it mean for him to love me? What is love?  Does his love have limits?  But back to the trauma stuff.  Since the church has hurt these communities quite repeatedly in the past, it is absolutely understandable that individuals in these communities have built a stealthy resentment towards Christianity as a whole.  I have been an agnostic twice and sometimes I really do doubt whether I want to be associated with the label “Christian.”  I do possess strong convictions despite minimizing how much I discuss it.  It does still play an instrumental role in my life.

Back to the original question, “Why the bloody hell am I still a Christian?”  Before I move forward, I will not and cannot give objective evidence for the existence of God and specifically the Christian God.  I am aware that many of my views are dogmatic and originate from anecdotal observations rather than factual content.  Many intellectuals cannot agree on a solid argument for the existence of God, so do not expect such an unrealistic feat from me.  If you were to go down the route of a strictly logical path I would say that agnosticism is probably the most reasonable conclusion based on factual evidence.  The best arguments from the perspective of theism are abductive arguments, arguments that attempt to give the best possible explanation for a phenomenon.  Occam’s Razor, the simplest explanation taking into account all the facts is the best explanation, is the method in which to find the best possible explanation for a phenomenon thereby strengthening an abductive argument.  For example, our ability to comprehend and discover science is one such phenomenon in which arguably the best explanation could be the existence of God or at least intelligent designer.  However, there are also many evolutionary explanations for the phenomenon as well.  Next is figuring which is the simplest explanation that also takes into consideration of all known facts.  Abductive arguments never prove that something is objectively true but merely most likely true.  The conclusion is subject to change based on new data that may arise every day.  Only deductive arguments if the premises are true and the conclusion necessarily follows from the premises can give objectively factual conclusions. (Example of a Deductive Argument: If A then B; if B then C, therefore, if A then C).  All of scientific reasoning exists outside of deductive argumentation even scientific discoveries that are blatantly true.

Sorry, I was once a philosophy student, and I hope to return to school again at some point soon (which, by the way. much of my philosophical curiosity stems from my religious background).  My reasons for being a Christian are not objective and not reasons for which you should become a Christian yourself if you are considering the possibility. They are merely justifications for why I consider myself a Christian.  For starters, I deal with intense abandonment issues and chronic feelings of loneliness due to my extensive history of trauma.  The belief in a loving and caring God who will never abandon me has helped fill those gaps.  Of course, that does not mean that I don’t question the reason I have experienced so much evil if such a God exists unless I potentially deny his omnipotence.  That is a valid question.  I remember though, years ago, I was dangerously suicidal and was taken to the hospital. While waiting for a bed to open in the psychiatric hospital, the doctors put me in a secluded room with no intellectual stimulation, just blank white walls, for about 22 hours.  About maybe 16 to 18 hours in and eventually someone gave me a magazine that I would normally not have expressed any sort of interest in except under dire circumstances such as that.  My friend who dropped me off at the hospital is Catholic (one of the good ones) and she gave me a rosary as a source of strength.  I hid it under my scrubs so as the cameras that were watching my 24/7 would not pick it up.  In the room next to me, there was an older man who was belligerent and violent against the nurses.  He made quite a ruckus all night, and it was frankly triggering and disturbing.  I thought I was losing a sense of myself. I clutched tightly to that rosary all night long.  After an ambulance transported me to the psychiatric hospital the next day, two nurses stripped searched me which of course meant that they took the rosary from my hands.  I cried profusely because I felt like that was the only part of myself that I had left. So, there is definitely a sense of identity and strength I get from being a Christian; it is at the very least useful or practical for me to identify as a Christian.  Christianity, particularly the scriptures involving Jesus, is also the reason why I am a leftist today.  It is also surprisingly the reason I became more accepting of the LGBTQ+ community after my extremely conservative upbringing.  Acts describes the early church, pre-Constantine’s conversion in 312 A.D., as being strongly communally based.  People shared food, shelter, and clothing with one another and no one went without.  This strikingly sounds like an anarcho-communist utopia.  The understanding of Jesus as the Son of God was of the upmost importance, and Jesus’ denouncing of the ethnocentric ideology of Jewish religious leaders telling his disciples to go out and tell the world about him brought the gentiles into the community with him.  One of the first recorded converts in the Bible was a eunuch from what is modern Ethiopia.  It was not only a gentile but also a sexual minority.  Jesus had a strong message about community and non-judgmental stance towards others.  He rebuked people who valued power and wealth over other people.  This particularly included the rich, religious leaders, and other people of power.  He told a rich man to give away all his possessions to enter the Kingdom of Heaven which the man left distraught.  He healed the servant of the Roman centurion and it is highly likely according to Biblical scholars that they were in a homosexual relationship given the historical precedent of that time.  Jesus is crucial and central to the Christian faith.  Christianity does not exist without him.  Why else would it be call CHRIST-ianity?  And of course, modern-day Jews and Muslims at the very least recognize Jesus as a great prophet (The Koran also states that Christians and Jews will also be rewarded in heaven alongside Muslims).  What sets Christianity apart is that one of the most basic tenets of Christianity is the belief in the divinity of Jesus Christ.  When looking at Christianity, what is essential is looking through the lens of Jesus when interpreting the rest of scripture, what is human-informed and what objectively divine.  I believe that much of the Bible is divine to an extent but at times grossly misconstrued by human beings.  Christianity has been interpreted in ways in which have wielded immense good and immense harm today.  In other words, it is easy to imagine that this would be true for the history of the Judeo-Christian faith.  It has been used today to justify genocides, but it has also been used to build free clinics for people who do not have access to healthcare (the church I have been attending).  Religion can be extremely dangerous if interpreted in a grotesque way with self-interest plaguing one’s reasoning.  I do not think; however, it is something necessarily intrinsically wrong with religion.

I will probably do more blog posts on this topic, specifically on queerness and the Bible.  With how I interpret the Bible, I can easily justify living openly queer.  I will give a brief synopsis in how I justify the way I live in light of being a Christian.  Most of the verses which speak against homosexuality are in extremely specific sections with absurd rules such as never defend your husband in a fight by grabbing other man’s penis or washing yourself three times after a nocturnal ejaculation.  Maybe, the most substantive verse would be from Paul in Romans and Corinthians; however, Paul has also said that women should never speak in a place of worship which even by most conservative Evangelical Christian standards is too sexist.  We are talking about an extensive history of patriarchy and ethnocentrism, wanting desperately to separate their culture from other cultures by committing genital mutilation and refraining from homosexual acts plaguing the society for many centuries.  The Bible was exclusively written by men in this context trying to interpret something divine.  I do not believe the Bible is inerrant.  The Bible gives little insight in terms of varying gender identities.  It speaks against transvestitism a “crime” one cannot commit if they identify with the gender that they are attempting to express. Transvestitism does not equal transgenderism and equating the two would be an invalidation of a person’s gender identity since you are insinuation that a transgender man for example is really just a woman presenting as a man instead of a man in his own right.  But furthermore, with the increased greater understanding that sexual orientation and gender identity is rooted in one’s being and not a lifestyle which someone follows by their own volition, one must consider the idea of whether anyone could be excluded from Jesus’ community based on some uncontrollable trait.  The obvious answer to this is no, and most conservative Christians would agree with the premise.  However, they either deny queerness is an innate trait, or that it is a mental illness, or a trait that must be suppressed.  The third is absurd, because you would never tell someone to be a specific race in order to be accepted in the Christian community.  It a trans-woman is a woman, then there is no way to change the fact that she is a woman.  Even if she dresses masculine and never medically transitions, she is still a woman. She would actually be cross-dressing technically!  Since gender has to do with one’s internal identity and not necessarily one’s presentation, no matter how much she tries, even if she comes off as a man is not a man. Telling people to suppress their identity has only led to a mental health crisis in the queer community and high suicidal rates.  Is a God who tells people to suppress a portion of themselves that he presumably created for no other purpose but the prospect of getting to heaven one day truly loving?  I would argue not.  I would go as far to say that if you do believe that queer people should suppress themselves, there is the insinuation that God wants to make certain people suffer unnecessarily (unnecessarily is key here, not that we should never have challenges, but we should never have to suffer unnecessarily) and does not truly love certain people.  That last bit is a heretical statement.  

Phew!  That was a lot and thank you for bearing with me through all of it.  Thank you for your time and your patience when reading all of this.  Sorry if it mostly sounded like a bunch of thoughts loosely stringed together.  That is essentially what my life is at this point. I hope from this you may have been able to get a different perspective of what it might mean for someone to be a Christian or why I am still a self-identified Christian.  I also hope that you have been able gain a better understanding of me.  Maybe you have more respect for me or maybe you have lost all respect for me.  Either one is fine.  You may have whatever opinion you want of me.  I have heard it all: delusional, deceived, misled, crazy, etc. That is okay.  It is sad though in the midst of trying so desperately to fight for a completely egalitarian society.  I am comfortable for the most part with the label.  I have found a church that accepts my gender identity using correct name and pronouns.  I had the fortune of being in the church when I came out, so most of the parishioners knew my birthname but still switched out of respect for me at the very least. The official church directory has my preferred name there.  Not every individual is accepting, but the vast majority are including the priest who defended me when someone made some transphobic comments using scripture.  The church has been a source of slow healing for me from all the abuse and trauma I have experienced, and they have helped me during some dark times such as when I was homeless and hungry.  That is what the church is meant to be, a place of safety and love.  I have broken down in tears before during some of the services out of being so overwhelmed by the kindness and acceptance I got from them as opposed to people in my past. In fact, they were more accepting of me than my job who just cut my hours more and I eventually lost the job soon after coming out publicly.  After my abusive ex-boyfriend from back when I thought I was cisgender and straight became a full-blown fascist, I decided to dedicate my life to loving others. This is where it has brought me so far, a staunch Christian leftist.   

[anastpaul]

Thought for the day – THE SIXTEEN CARMELITE MARTYRS OF  COMPIEGNE

The French Revolution reveals the titanic struggle between good and evil.   During the terror, over 40,000 Frenchmen were executed just for holding fast to the Catholic Faith and objecting to the worst excesses of the Committee of Public Safety.   The blood lost in the years of 1792-1794 staggers the imagination even in the retelling and the campaign against the Church was as diabolical as it was cruel.

Contemplative religious communities had been among the first targets of the fury of the French Revolution against the Catholic Church.   Less than a year from May 1789 when the Revolution began with the meeting of the Estates-General, these communities had been required by law to disband.   But many of them continued in being, in hiding. Among these were the community of the Carmelite nuns of Compiegne, in northeastern France not far from Paris – the fifty-third convent in France of the Carmelite sisters who followed the reform of  St. Teresa of Avila, founded in 1641, noted throughout its history for fidelity and fervour.   Their convent was raided in August 1790, all the property of the sisters was seized by the government and they were forced to discard their habits and leave their house.   They divided into four groups which found lodging in four different houses all near the same church in Compiegne and for several years they were to a large extent able to continue their religious life in secret.   But the intensified surveillance and searches of the “Great Terror” revealed their secret and in June 1794 most of them were arrested and imprisoned.

They had expected this; indeed, they had prayed for it.   At some time during the summer of 1792, very likely just after the events of August 10 of that year that marked the descent into the true deeps of the Revolution, their prioress, Madeleine Lidoine, whose name in religion was Teresa in honour of the founder of their order, by all accounts a charming  perceptive and highly intelligent woman, had foreseen much of what was to come.   At Easter of 1792, she told her community that, while looking through the archives she had found the account of a dream a Carmelite had in 1693.   In that dream, the Sister saw the whole Community, with the exception of 2 or 3 Sisters, in glory and called to follow the Lamb. In the mind of the Prioress, this mean martyrdom and might well be a prophetic announcement of their fate.

Mother Teresa had said to her sisters: “Having meditated much on this subject, I have thought of making an act of consecration by which the Community would offer itself as a sacrifice to appease the anger of God, so that the divine peace of His Dear Son would be brought into the world, returned to the Church and the state.”   The sisters discussed her proposal and all agreed to it but the two oldest, who were hesitant.   But when the news of the September massacres came, mingling glorious martyrdom with apostasy, these two sisters made their choice, joining their commitment to that of the rest of the community.   All made their offering; it was to be accepted.

After their lodgings were invaded again in June, their devotional objects shattered and their tabernacle trampled underfoot by a Revolutionary who told them that their place of worship should be transformed into a dog kennel, the Carmelite sisters were taken to the Conciergerie prison, where so many of the leading victims of the guillotine had been held during their last days on earth.   There they composed a canticle for their martyrdom, to be sung to the familiar tune of the Marseillaise.   The original still exists, written in pencil and given to one of their fellow prisoners, a lay woman who survived.

On July 17 the sixteen sisters were brought before Fouquier-Tinville. All cases were now being disposed of within twenty-four hours as Robespierre had wished; theirs was no exception. They were charged with having received arms for the émigrés; their prioress, Sister Teresa, answered by holding up a crucifix. “Here are the only arms that we have ever had in our house.” They were charged with possessing an altar-cloth with designs honouring the old monarchy (perhaps the fleur-de-lis) and were asked  to deny any attachment to the royal family. Sister Teresa responded: “If that is a crime, we are all guilty of it; you can never tear out of our hearts the attachment for Louis XVI and his family. Your laws cannot prohibit feeling; they cannot extend their empire to the affections of the soul; God alone has the right to judge them.” They were charged with corresponding with priests forced to leave the country because they would not take the constitutional oath; they freely admitted this. Finally they were charged with the catchall indictment by which any serious Catholic in France could be guillotined during the Terror: “fanaticism.” Sister Henriette, who had been Gabrielle de Croissy, challenged Fouguier-Tinvile to his face: “Citizen, it is your duty to respond to the request of one condemned; I call upon you to answer us and to tell us just what you mean by the word ‘fanatic.’” “I mean,” snapped the Public Prosecutor of the Terror, “your attachment to your childish beliefs and your silly religious practices.” “Let us rejoice, my dear Mother and Sisters, in the joy of the Lord,” said Sister Henriette, “that we shall die for our holy religion, our faith, our confidence in the Holy Roman Catholic Church.”

Give over our hearts to joy, the day of glory has arrived.

Far from us all weakness, seeing the standard come;

We prepare for the victory, we all march to the true conquest,

Under the flag of the dying God we run, we all seek the glory;

Rekindle our ardour, our bodies are the Lord’s,

We climb, we climb the scaffold and give ourselves back to the Victor.O happiness ever desired for Catholics of France,

To follow the wondrous road

Already marked out so often by the martyrs toward their suffering,

After Jesus with the King, we show our faith to Christians,

We adore a God of justice; as the fervent priest, the constant faithful,

Seal, seal with all their blood faith in the dying God….Holy Virgin, our model, August queen of martyrs, deign to strengthen our zeal

And purify our desires, protect France even yet, help; us mount to Heaven,

make us feel even in these places, the effects of your power. Sustain your children,

Submissive, obedient, dying, dying with Jesus and in our King believing.

While in prison, they asked and were granted permission to wash their clothes. As they had only one set of lay clothes, they put on their religious habit and set to the task. Providentially, the revolutionaries picked that “wash day” for their transfer to Paris.   As their clothes were soaking wet, the Carmelites left for Paris wearing their “outlawed” religious habit.   They celebrated the feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel in prison, wondering whether they would die that day.

It was only the next day they went to the guillotine.   The journey in the carts took more than an hour.   All the way the Carmelite sisters sang: the “Miserere,” “Salve Regina,” and “Te Deum.”   Beholding them, a total silence fell on the raucous, brutal crowd, most of them cheapened and hardened by day after day of the spectacle of public slaughter.   At the foot of the towering killing machine, their eyes raised to Heaven, the sisters sang “Veni Creator Spiritus.” One by one, they renewed their religious vows.   They pardoned their executioners.   One observer cried out: “Look at them and see if they do not have the air of angels! By my faith, if these women did not all go straight to Paradise, then no one is there!”

Sister Teresa, their prioress, requested and obtained permission to go last under the knife.   The youngest, Sister Constance, went first.   She climbed the steps of the guillotine “With the air of a queen going to receive her crown,” singing Laudate Dominum omnes gentes, “all peoples praise the Lord.”   She placed her head in the position for death without allowing the executioner to touch her.   Each sister followed her example, those remaining singing likewise with each, until only the prioress was left, holding in her hand a small figure of the Blessed Virgin Mary.   The killing of each martyr required about two minutes.   It was about eight o’clock in the evening, still bright at midsummer.   During the whole time the profound silence of the crowd about the guillotine endured unbroken.

Two years before when the horror began, the Carmelite community at Compiegne had offered itself as a holocaust, that peace might be restored to France and the Church.   The return of full peace was still twenty-one years in the future.   But the Reign of Terror had only ten days left to run. Years of war, oppression and persecution were yet to come, but the mass official killing in the public squares of Paris was about to end.

The Cross had vanquished the guillotine.

These sixteen holy Carmelite nuns have all been beatified by our Holy Father, the Pope, (Pope St. Pius X, 27 May 1906) which is the last step before canonisation.    Blessed Carmelites of Compiegne, pray for us!

(via AnaStpaul – Breathing Catholic)

[kaliiwashere]

baseball fashion blog

Nevertheless baseball jewelry, as we speak it is often the spies and celebrities who're wearing hats as a result of they don't wish to be acknowledged by anybody. Furthermore you'll be able to require the manufacturing facility to customise unique type hats that you like. The double link provides power and style. You don't need to be a professional to dress like one. While no one will possible be using them to make new customized jewelry, these gems are sport necklaces unique and have fascinating histories. A method a man can look his most interesting is by wearing cufflinks. It's a novel method for men to accessorize without the heaviness of jewellery that can get in the way or is uncomfortable. A basic males's diamond tennis bracelet is a great way to add an elegant, but masculine shine to any look. From the office to the golf course to a night time out on the city, this statement piece can add a classy, style forward accent. It's a protracted standing tradition in lots of families so as to add a charm to a bracelet over time as a holiday or birthday gift.

You additionally get to see these photos every time you placed on the jewellery. Probably the most thrilling truth about trend jewellery is that it always retains altering. But let's remind you that even a small ring you wear comes into the class of the jewellery. The truth is, possibly a quick conversation about those New York Yankees, Oakland Raiders or even a little little bit of Alabama Crimson on your wrists will lead to a more in depth dialog which may inevitably lead to business offers. Like a Baseball Mom bangle bracelet worn by the entire crew will encourage them to do better, present cooperation and even embolden the crew members to play nicely. There's the play and costume jewelry. Diamond jewellery is particular in that it conveys feelings with out saying phrases. The head secures the diamond. Like could also be a pitcher participant allowed to wear a men's wedding ring in the on the mound?

%22sequence%22:2}]" width="337" />

You can order personalised golf balls, cookies made to appear to be footballs, baseballs, or soccer balls, or any number of other sports or staff oriented gifts. The group spirit and cooperation might be increased by designing the identical jewellery merchandise for the staff. Jewellery market veterans in China say cadmium has been utilised in home gadgets there for years. Take a quick look at various kinds of Pet Cremation Urns and other memorials obtainable available in the market. Employee Recognition Awards - Workers take great pleasure in sporting lapel pins that show their achievements, and they're going to treasure employee recognition awards that they will often present to others. Wish to take a wild guess at what keyphrase theyre focusing on? Sometimes a ring or necklace can have a particular, private which means as a result of it was a gift. For the fan that enjoys the physique piercing pattern a pink or blue Biobplasts Blazing Baseball Stomach Ring will do the trick.

The inexpensiveness of some modern rhinestones has allowed them to be utilized in every type of utility, from dog collars to baseball caps. Some of essentially the most distinctive fun baseball products are baseball slippers for women offered on amazon, baseball purses and totes or baseball cuff link, money clip, and tie tack for males. At the most primary, you won't go fallacious with knee-length or longer skirts for women and suits or gown shirts and pants for males. Second, tucking shirts in and wearing belts are okay for the holidays, however they certain aren't the cool hip look we're going for. The place where you will is n determining issue for the accessories. This means earrings; bracelets, rings and necklaces are all no-no's. Mothers and boys proceed to complain that COOL boys clothes are non-existent. These are some great wedding ideas for sports lovers. Maybe you are fascinated with sports activities cufflinks that exhibit your hobbies.

This French hybrid grape produces a dry crimson wine that is daring, wealthy, and full bodied. For white wine fans, strive the LaCrosse, a semi candy gem with aromas of melon and pear. Other hot picks embrace a diamond bracelet or perhaps a diamond and sapphire coronary heart locket. One of the crucial simple, but traditional, items of jewellery is a top quality bracelet. There's the inexpensive choice of fashion jewelry. Wholesale trend jewelry is the idea assigned to organizations that manufacture type jewellery. A standard misconception is that style jewelry is simply too fake trying. Trend jewellery is available in all differing kinds. A photo of just a little lady at her first dance recital or slightly boy in his first baseball sport put on photograph jewelry may make fantastic keepsake reward. The standard of Gold present nice pliability along with ductility as nicely as the man views and his awesome ability to generate wonderful together with sophisticated patterns affords full Gold Jewelry the infatuation related to loveliness. From a three-stone ring that sparkles with the previous, present and future, or a classic eternity ring, diamonds are a arms-down sentimental favourite. There are a number of seems to be that must be pulled together in 2006. If you're going for a glance, go all the way in which and baseball jewelry.

For the sports activities fan in you, there is a wide choice of sports activities cufflinks accessible including a wide variety of sports group cufflinks. Individuals do not realize that in the event that they cannot afford the actual deal, there are more options. Mouth - select a cute pair of lips, smile, chuckle, frown or even a tongue sticking out plus more. Gifts for Collectors Nearly any object can be collected: baseball cards, spoons, vintage brooches, and even vintage blenders. The Boston Pink Sox is probably essentially the most well-known baseball staff to affiliate with Phiten titanium necklaces. Do you love your workforce almost as much as the individual you intend to marry? If you're a baseball fan or even a soccer fan, you'll be able to rotate your team throughout the seasons so you are all the time on prime of the sport. Boys' clothes are getting cooler and cooler the entire time. This is nice for people who are up in age who have points corresponding to osteoporosis, arthritis, or something that has brought on their legs to become weakened. However, a lot of people say it has really helped them; they even talked about they have been also skeptical to start with.

Or is the deck stacked against her and she'll lose a lot of money? It is apparent that much less money is needed for a flea market than for a retail retailer, but what's not so obvious? In other phrases, concentrate on how a lot cash you may have already made on that order that came in, rather than specializing in the items which can be left over and haven't bought. In addition to giving the video games their construction, rules are meant to give all individuals a (supposedly) even playing discipline. These seats embrace a button that permits the seated individual to rise up with ease, each time they're prepared. Are you able to easily get to various spots to buy? Get a second opinion. Men also hit a home run with the lady of their lives by marking a significant (or not so vital) anniversary with the diamond anniversary ring. I believe this could possibly be an amazing gift for a particular occasion similar to graduation or marriage ceremony or an anniversary.

I made a necklace with a favourite photo of a sunset right here. Add earrings and a necklace to finish your look. When using the search terms, you should also add your city or city identify to the search with a view to uncover sources near you. Certain, you could find replica Collection bands along collectively utilizing arranged stones and likewise diamonds, nevertheless these would be the exception, not the particular rule. Diamonds dazzle like nothing else can. Dazzle her with a diamond. These collars also include some type of identification on them, very similar to we use on our canine tags at the moment. Such a wonderful paradise that is like a slice of Heaven on Earth. Even when you don’t have expertise at all, it can just take a couple weeks of messing around with programs as Photoshop and Illustrator. Nevertheless, in today’s world the place mummification will not be possible, pet owners still have the choice to honor their furry pals with the help of pet memorials.

When i lived at dwelling, I all the time tried to help make modifications for the higher, fairly than just letting dangerous politics resolve for me. These really show off the interests of any sharp dressed man all whereas catering to his interior sports lover. In case you ask a man what he actually wants, he's likely to say a brand new automotive, some sports activities gear or model new instruments. Missing baseball jewelry, which usually shelving up wards repeated flyer a long way in arms and, joints, fingers, legs and, in addition to earlobes. Many rabid baseball enthusiasts placed on additional the typical investing credit charge enjoying greeting handmade homemade enterprise notes, signed objects, banners and ads, paint footplate, in addition to bubblehead dolls. The first Pizza Hut opened in 1958, which is about 500 years closer. It always has a recent just cleaned regarded that seems to fade rapidly with yellow gold. Judy is considering promoting earrings at the local swapmeet with baseball jewelry.

[prosperopedia]

What Types of Insurance Should You Have To Protect Your Family?

Article Summary

Four general types of insurance are recommended to keep you and your family protected from financial hardship, including:

Life Insurance

Disability Insurance

Health Insurance

Property Insurance

Shopping for and setting up these insurance accounts will provide you with a hedge against unexpected issues that could damage your financial stability.

Becoming financially well-off is a goal that is common to most who provide for a family. Most financial management programs, including Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University courses and the LDS Church’s Personal Finances Self-Reliance course, highly recommend getting insurance as a way of hedging against uncertainty. For those of us who have worked hard to ensure that we are feeding, clothing, and sheltering our loved ones, it would be devastating to lose it all or have a major setback to experience a situation wherein we lose a significant portion of our savings and overall net worth because of a loss due to a car accident, a natural disaster, an unexpected job loss, or a major sickness in the family.

Fortunately, the insurance market has made it possible to address those risks of loss in a way that allows us to pay a premium each month so that, in the event that some misfortune finds its way to us, we can be restored financially as much as possible to the standing we had before experiencing an unfortunate loss.

The problem is, life is pretty complicated. It’s hard to anticipate everything that could happen to you and to your family. Between arranging rides to soccer practice, paying the mortgage, working a full-time job, and everything else you have going on, sometimes the matter of figuring out insurance isn’t exactly a top priority. It really doesn’t have to be. As long as you understand what risks exist to your family’s financial well-being and make sure you have your bases covered by taking care of the fundamentals, you can hopefully move on to more interesting aspects of your life.

What types of insurance does the typical family need to protect itself from financial ruin?

Here are the most logical, most common ways of protecting against financial loss through insurance.

Life Insurance

Life insurance is a way to provide a financial payout to beneficiaries of the person who is insured. A life insurance policy is a contract between an insurance provider and the person who is insured. In the event that the insured person dies while the policy is in effect, the insurance company pays out a lump-sum death benefit to the beneficiaries of the person who held the life insurance policy. During the term of the life insurance policy, the person insured pays a monthly premium to keep the policy active.

Anyone who provides in a significant way for a family, especially one with younger children, should have life insurance. The exception to this would be if the parent or guardian of the children has sufficient assets available and a will and estate set up that would provide for his or her children without needing a life insurance policy.

A term life insurance policy, the most common form of life insurance, creates a contract that insures a person for a certain number of years. This type of policy is normally recommended by financial professionals instead of whole life or universal life insurance policy.

Normally, people get term life policies at a younger age, in their 20s. This is normally when they are healthiest, a situation which gives them lower rates on their policies. For young, healthy people, it is common to pay between $20-$30 per month for a standard term life insurance policy. Women typically pay lower premiums than men because they tend to live longer.

For my wife and I, we each have a 20-year term life policy that provides a $500,000 death benefit in case either of us were to pass away. Our monthly premiums are just over $20 per month. In our financial situation, we expect that by the time our policies expire in the next decade or so, most of our children will be close to adult age and able to provide for themselves, and we will have much more than the $1M value of our combined life insurance policies available to support our children should either or both of us pass away. Also, we have set up a robust will and estate plan that puts our seven children in what we consider to be the best possible position should something happen to us.

Whole life insurance or universal life insurance policies are often promoted by life insurance agents because the agents make larger commissions on them. In whole life policies, the premiums and death benefit are mixed in together with investment vehicles. Most objective financial advisors recommend against whole life policies for most people.

The largest providers of life insurance include:

MetLife (Brighthouse Financial)

Northwestern Mutual

New York Life

Prudential

Lincoln National

MassMutual

John Hancock

Transamerica

Disability Insurance

Disability insurance is similar to life insurance, except that instead of protecting against death, it protects against other forms of the insured person being unable to earn an income.

Disability insurance can cover a range of inabilities to work, including everything from total disability to paying for rehabilitation treatments that may be required for an injured person to get back to work. Disability insurance terms are typically limited to nearly the time a person is close to retirement age.

It is recommended that people get enough disability coverage to provide about 50% to 80% of their normal take-home pay so as to allow them to maintain their standard of living should they become incapable of working their normal job. Disability premium rates are typically higher for women due to the data that shows they are disabled (pregnancy and childbirth are contributing factors) more often than men. Typical disability rates for a middle-aged man working a professional career are $100 to $150 per month, whereas for a woman they are $150 to $200 per month.

The largest providers of disability insurance include:

Cigna

Unum

MetLife

The Hartford

Lincoln Financial Group

Prudential

Liberty Mutual

The Standard

Mutual of Omaha

Health Insurance

Health insurance is easily the most complicated of these income and asset protection insurances, and it is the one that should be shopped the most, as premiums and coverage vary greatly. Also, the healthcare system in the United States has become so complicated that it is difficult for most people to understand and predict what they’re paying for and how much it is going to cost. Especially because of how impossible it is to see into your future to know what healthcare services you’ll need, you typically don’t know what

My recommendation regarding health insurance is to find a high-deductible, lower-premium policy that protects you and your family in the event that something catastrophic happens, but that isn’t emptying your pockets through high premiums that are being wasted. Essentially, this is self-insuring as far as possible. A lower-cost healthcare policy combined with plenty of emergency savings and a lifestyle (including diet, exercise, and an ongoing habit of obtaining the knowledge you need to avoid having to rush to the doctor for every sickness that might hit you or your family) in which you take good care of yourself will ultimately be the best scenario for most people.

The alternative, at the other end of the self-government spectrum, is a high-cost, government subsidized policy, a poor diet and bad health habits, along with excessive visits to the doctor to fix problems that could have been avoided had the insured been more careful and self-reliant.

Relying as much as you can on yourself instead of leaning too heavily on health insurance, while still making sure you have adequate coverage to avoid major financial loss, is a more prosperous approach to healthcare.

Some of the largest providers of health insurance include:

UnitedHealth Group

Anthem

Aetna

Cigna

Humana

Molina Healthcare

Wellcare Health Plans

Property Insurance

Property insurance includes automobile insurance and house insurance. In these policies, you pay the insurance provider a premium each month in exchange for them curing any loss that you might have, up to a designated amount. The amount of the insurance coverage is usually capped by the actual value of your property.

Property insurance is required for property that is financed. In addition, for automobiles, states usually require a sufficient amount of liability coverage to ensure that in the event you cause an accident, you don’t cause financial damage to other drivers on the road.

The largest providers of automobile insurance are:

State Farm

GEICO

Progressive

Allstate

USAA

Liberty Mutual

Farmers

Nationwide

Travelers

American Family

The largest providers of home insurance has many of the same companies, but is slightly different:

State Farm

Allstate

Liberty Mutual

USAA

Farmers

Travelers

Nationwide

American Family

Chubb

Erie Insurance

Shopping for Insurance

When shopping for insurance, it’s usually a good idea to get at least two quotes, preferably three. The actuaries who create the insurance rates for the different insurance companies use different sets of data to ensure that their companies’ insurance premiums match up with what their coverage offers to customers. Although the policies are generally comparable, there are often differences that cause one to be more appropriate for your situation than another.

As you shop for insurance, you’re typically most concerned with the monthly premium you’ll pay, the amount coverage you get for that premium, and the deductible you’re expected to pay before your insurance coverage kicks in and supplements the costs you incur from a claim. For health insurance, as explained before, these costs are somewhat harder to predict, so you should expect to spend more time shopping for the right insurance provider. With the other types of insurance, finding and choosing a policy shouldn’t be nearly as difficult.

Insurance And Your Financial Plan

A significant part of ensuring that your financial plan is solid is to understand how insurance works and spending the time to put into place insurance arrangements that are cost-effective and trustworthy.

Hopefully this article has helped in making insurance decisions.

The post What Types of Insurance Should You Have To Protect Your Family? appeared first on The Handbook for Happiness, and Success, and Prosperity Prosperopedia.

from WordPress https://ift.tt/2vf214L via IFTTT

[johnclapperne]

{#TransparentTuesday} Why Do We Still Need Feminism?

A man recently found out that I, the completely normal-looking and friendly young woman he had been chatting with, was a feminist.

This must have really shaken him up (I assume he’d never met one of us IRL before), because his next question was:

So you think women should be superior to men?

Naturally my first response was to assume he was kidding and laugh. Because… wut?

But no. This man was deadass serious. I have no idea what kind of people he had been exposed to, but he was completely under the impression that, since gender inequality no longer exists, feminists are trying to oppress men so that we can run the world.

The interesting thing was that this man really believes that since women are paid the same as men (false lol) and we can vote and own land now, so basically… any woman who feels oppressed at this point is just playing the victim card and want everything to be handed to them.

He also seemed to feel very strongly that identifying our movement according to gender is just “divisive” and that we should be focusing on “walking together” rather than “pitting ourselves against the good men trying to help us.”

Sigh.

Anyway, after this conversation turned sour, I got to thinking. Not about him, because he had nothing to offer but privileged nonsense, but about some of the beliefs we was spouting. I hear echoes of his views all the time, from good people who are genuinely struggling to understand why is feminism still a thing again…?

It’s very easy for people (aka people who aren’t actually reading feminist texts or following feminist leaders) to completely misunderstand the goal of feminism. They hear bits and pieces from snarky and inaccurate third-party sources like FOX news or whatever, and come away with the belief that feminism seems stupid, dangerous, or unnecessary.

If you frame it like “women whining about injustice instead of doing something about it” or “women wanting to oppress men,” then yeah, the whole thing is pretty unlikeable. Duh– that’s why so many anti-progressive (right-wing) sources spin it that way!

But those views are based on nothing more than malevolent gossip; a smear campaign designed to invalidate a movement that causes trouble for people who want to maintain the status quo.

That’s why I decided to set a few facts straight, and tackle some basic shit about what I’m fighting for when I say I’m a feminist. Obviously this is a much bigger topic than one essay’s worth, but I’ll do my best.

Q: Why do we still need feminism?

A: Because there is still gender inequality. There is still sexism, and discrimination based on gender, sexuality, and gender presentation. There is still exploitation and oppression based on gender.

Q: What is the goal of feminism?

A: There are many serious legislative and structural issues at the core of the feminist movement, like fighting for access to full reproductive health care and rights, access to affordable and high quality child-care options and paid family leave, an end to sexual exploitation and human trafficking, and fighting for better representation in media/entertainment as well as a more equal percentage of women in elected office, CEO positions, leadership positions.

Not to mention of course the right to not be sexually harassed/assaulted/raped, the right to not experience domestic violence, and equal pay for equal work. Oh, and the right to be LGBTQ or transgender without the barrage of violent and marginalizing fuckery that currently comes with that.

Note: It’s also important to acknowledge the intersections of oppression that cross categories such as race, ability, class, age, weight, etc. Intersectional feminism is about recognizing and fighting the various intersecting systems of power that marginalize and oppress people, because a black woman’s experience is completely different than a white woman’s experience, and a fat woman’s experience is completely different than a thin woman’s experience.

I wish I had more time to tackle the complicated intersectional landscape, but for the purpose of this essay, feminism’s goal is simply to end sexism, gender inequality, and gender bias.

Q: Who is the enemy of feminism?

A: Spoiler alert: it’s not men! Feminism is not anti man. Again, we’re just anti-sexism, anti-discrimination, anti-oppression, and anti-exploitation. The “enemy” is sexism, discrimination based on gender and sexuality, and gender inequality.

Q: What do you mean by sexism and gender inequality?

A: If you’ve never personally experienced gender or sexism inequality, they can be completely invisible.

Wikipedia says:

“Gender inequality refers to unequal treatment or perceptions of individuals wholly or partly due to their gender. It arises from differences in gender roles.”

So here’s the deal: Our culture is obsessed with gender differentiation. Before a baby is even born, we are consumed by the desire to categorize them based on their genitals (which is super creepy if you think about it), and we wrongly identify both sex and gender on a binary. You get to be just one of the two options, and anyone who doesn’t fit into one of those has to just pick whichever is “closest.”

Interestingly, intersex people are born all the time with a variety of unique reproductive organs and genitals that make it hard for them to check the box of either “boy” or “girl.” These people are often surgically altered at birth to make them fit whichever box is most convenient.

Isn’t that pretty fucked up? Like… we have a binary system and these babies don’t fit in with it, so we cut their bodies until they do. Oh, and in case you think this is a super rare occurrence, it’s not: intesex people are born at about the same rate as redheads.

Ok, so I take issue with the way our culture fetishes sex and gender right out the gate, and forces everyone to choose a binary option, but from there it only gets worse! Due to our obsession with gender, we shove gendered clothing, toys, and treatment on our children.

Our implicit gender biases (aka: biases that are below the level of consciousness) get passed on when we praise little girls for being cute, nice, pretty, and well-behaved, and we praise little boys for being smart, strong, fast, and clever. They get passed on when we buy our girls dolls and our boys trucks. They get passed on when we permit our boys to be aggressive and wild, but shame our girls for the same. They get passed on when we permit our girls to be sensitive and emotional, but shame our boys for the same. They get passed on when we put our little girls in dresses that limit movement and have no pockets, teaching her that her body is for looking at, not for doing stuff.

In short, we socialize our children to see their gender as the most fundamental part of their identity, and we teach them how to appropriately perform their gender so that they fit in with our sexist ideas of what gender should be.

It doesn’t get better from there though.

The perceptions we hold of each gender get stronger throughout a person’s life, and we chalk it all up to biology rather than the way we socialize children since before they’re born.

We perceive men as better at math and driving. We perceive women as better at nurturing and childcare. We see men as smart, and women as social. We assume men are better leaders, and women are better at domestic skills. We take for granted that men love sports and women, while women love shopping and makeup. We unconsciously believe men need to feel like useful providers, while women need to feel beautiful and desirable.

In short, most of us internalize the performance of gender that we got stuck with based on our genitals at birth, and apply it both to ourselves and to everyone else. We know that people who break the rules are severely punished and marginalized. Think: a feminine gay man who spends his entire life being shamed for not being “manly” enough, or the way a woman is slut-shamed and victim-blamed if she tempted a helpless man into assaulting her.

We all have implicit gender biases, and women and non-conforming gender individuals get the short end of the stick. Both men and women view men (especially tall, white, conventionally masculine men) as more trustworthy and competent, for example, so it starts to feel completely natural that they hold more positions of leadership, and make more money, and otherwise rule the world.

When we talk about living in a patriarchy, it simply means that this culture was historically built by men, for men, and most of us still view this as the natural order of things due to implicit gender biases that we keep passing on to our children. The patriarchy determines who is suitable for which job positions, who is believable in a trial, who gets access to bodily autonomy, and whose problems matter most.

Q: But… what about biology?

A: Many people really, really want to believe that men and women are each naturally drawn to all the gender roles and gender performance we shove on them, and they use “biology!” to defend their gender-obsessed actions.

First of all, I certainly recognize that there are some inherent differences between men and women beyond genitals, but it’s very difficult to tell the difference between which is nature and which is nurture when it comes to gender. Socialization is powerful shit, and we don’t have a gender-blind control group to see what would happen. (Trust me, I dream of this world often.)

That said, I feel like… if it’s really biology, then nobody should have a problem with us fighting the gender-based socialization. Because that would mean that even without teaching girls to be sexual objects and people-pleasers, they would become that way anyway! And even without teaching boys to feel entitled to women’s attention and bodies, or to repress all of their feelings except anger, that they would become violent, stoic, and emotionally stunted anyway!

I mean really, if biology is so strong, nothing would change if we stopped shoving gender performances down everyone’s throat. So maybe just let us try?

Most importantly though, using the “biology!” response is very rude, because if biology explained all of our gender biases and performances, then we wouldn’t have a feminism movement because nobody would be bothered by anything. But people are, well… bothered.

It’s kinda like how we used to think women weren’t capable of voting, owning land, having jobs, running a mile, being fulfilled without children, or anything else. They used to cry “biology!” to that shit too, and we’ve slowly proved it allllll wrong. When I hear the biology argument, what I hear is that you simply don’t want things to change because the status quo is working for you.

Q: Why do we need to talk so divisively about gender, why can’t we just focus on coming together as humans?

A: It has to be about gender because it’s already about gender. This question, though usually well-intentioned, would be like asking your doctor: why does my treatment have to be all about cancer? Well… because you have cancer, my friend. It would be silly to treat you as if you didn’t have cancer, just because cancer makes you uncomfortable, right? Yeah. That.

When gender is no longer a divisive issue, we’ll stop treating it like one.

But gender determines how people are treated and perceived, what life chances and opportunities they’ll get, what standards they’ll be held to, and how they’ll be encouraged to view their role and identity.

This isn’t healthy for anyone of any gender, but women and non-gender-conforming individuals are disproportionately negatively impacted by both implicit and explicit biases, discrimination, exploitation, and marginalization.

This is why we fight, my friends.

Whew.

Happy Tuesday.

<3 Jessi

The post {#TransparentTuesday} Why Do We Still Need Feminism? appeared first on Jessi Kneeland.

https://ift.tt/2zMzN36

[ruthellisneda]

{#TransparentTuesday} Why Do We Still Need Feminism?

A man recently found out that I, the completely normal-looking and friendly young woman he had been chatting with, was a feminist.

This must have really shaken him up (I assume he’d never met one of us IRL before), because his next question was:

So you think women should be superior to men?

Naturally my first response was to assume he was kidding and laugh. Because… wut?

But no. This man was deadass serious. I have no idea what kind of people he had been exposed to, but he was completely under the impression that, since gender inequality no longer exists, feminists are trying to oppress men so that we can run the world.

The interesting thing was that this man really believes that since women are paid the same as men (false lol) and we can vote and own land now, so basically… any woman who feels oppressed at this point is just playing the victim card and want everything to be handed to them.

He also seemed to feel very strongly that identifying our movement according to gender is just “divisive” and that we should be focusing on “walking together” rather than “pitting ourselves against the good men trying to help us.”

Sigh.

Anyway, after this conversation turned sour, I got to thinking. Not about him, because he had nothing to offer but privileged nonsense, but about some of the beliefs we was spouting. I hear echoes of his views all the time, from good people who are genuinely struggling to understand why is feminism still a thing again…?

It’s very easy for people (aka people who aren’t actually reading feminist texts or following feminist leaders) to completely misunderstand the goal of feminism. They hear bits and pieces from snarky and inaccurate third-party sources like FOX news or whatever, and come away with the belief that feminism seems stupid, dangerous, or unnecessary.

If you frame it like “women whining about injustice instead of doing something about it” or “women wanting to oppress men,” then yeah, the whole thing is pretty unlikeable. Duh– that’s why so many anti-progressive (right-wing) sources spin it that way!

But those views are based on nothing more than malevolent gossip; a smear campaign designed to invalidate a movement that causes trouble for people who want to maintain the status quo.

That’s why I decided to set a few facts straight, and tackle some basic shit about what I’m fighting for when I say I’m a feminist. Obviously this is a much bigger topic than one essay’s worth, but I’ll do my best.

Q: Why do we still need feminism?

A: Because there is still gender inequality. There is still sexism, and discrimination based on gender, sexuality, and gender presentation. There is still exploitation and oppression based on gender.

Q: What is the goal of feminism?

A: There are many serious legislative and structural issues at the core of the feminist movement, like fighting for access to full reproductive health care and rights, access to affordable and high quality child-care options and paid family leave, an end to sexual exploitation and human trafficking, and fighting for better representation in media/entertainment as well as a more equal percentage of women in elected office, CEO positions, leadership positions.

Not to mention of course the right to not be sexually harassed/assaulted/raped, the right to not experience domestic violence, and equal pay for equal work. Oh, and the right to be LGBTQ or transgender without the barrage of violent and marginalizing fuckery that currently comes with that.

Note: It’s also important to acknowledge the intersections of oppression that cross categories such as race, ability, class, age, weight, etc. Intersectional feminism is about recognizing and fighting the various intersecting systems of power that marginalize and oppress people, because a black woman’s experience is completely different than a white woman’s experience, and a fat woman’s experience is completely different than a thin woman’s experience.

I wish I had more time to tackle the complicated intersectional landscape, but for the purpose of this essay, feminism’s goal is simply to end sexism, gender inequality, and gender bias.

Q: Who is the enemy of feminism?

A: Spoiler alert: it’s not men! Feminism is not anti man. Again, we’re just anti-sexism, anti-discrimination, anti-oppression, and anti-exploitation. The “enemy” is sexism, discrimination based on gender and sexuality, and gender inequality.

Q: What do you mean by sexism and gender inequality?

A: If you’ve never personally experienced gender or sexism inequality, they can be completely invisible.

Wikipedia says:

“Gender inequality refers to unequal treatment or perceptions of individuals wholly or partly due to their gender. It arises from differences in gender roles.”

So here’s the deal: Our culture is obsessed with gender differentiation. Before a baby is even born, we are consumed by the desire to categorize them based on their genitals (which is super creepy if you think about it), and we wrongly identify both sex and gender on a binary. You get to be just one of the two options, and anyone who doesn’t fit into one of those has to just pick whichever is “closest.”

Interestingly, intersex people are born all the time with a variety of unique reproductive organs and genitals that make it hard for them to check the box of either “boy” or “girl.” These people are often surgically altered at birth to make them fit whichever box is most convenient.

Isn’t that pretty fucked up? Like… we have a binary system and these babies don’t fit in with it, so we cut their bodies until they do. Oh, and in case you think this is a super rare occurrence, it’s not: intesex people are born at about the same rate as redheads.

Ok, so I take issue with the way our culture fetishes sex and gender right out the gate, and forces everyone to choose a binary option, but from there it only gets worse! Due to our obsession with gender, we shove gendered clothing, toys, and treatment on our children.

Our implicit gender biases (aka: biases that are below the level of consciousness) get passed on when we praise little girls for being cute, nice, pretty, and well-behaved, and we praise little boys for being smart, strong, fast, and clever. They get passed on when we buy our girls dolls and our boys trucks. They get passed on when we permit our boys to be aggressive and wild, but shame our girls for the same. They get passed on when we permit our girls to be sensitive and emotional, but shame our boys for the same. They get passed on when we put our little girls in dresses that limit movement and have no pockets, teaching her that her body is for looking at, not for doing stuff.

In short, we socialize our children to see their gender as the most fundamental part of their identity, and we teach them how to appropriately perform their gender so that they fit in with our sexist ideas of what gender should be.

It doesn’t get better from there though.

The perceptions we hold of each gender get stronger throughout a person’s life, and we chalk it all up to biology rather than the way we socialize children since before they’re born.

We perceive men as better at math and driving. We perceive women as better at nurturing and childcare. We see men as smart, and women as social. We assume men are better leaders, and women are better at domestic skills. We take for granted that men love sports and women, while women love shopping and makeup. We unconsciously believe men need to feel like useful providers, while women need to feel beautiful and desirable.

In short, most of us internalize the performance of gender that we got stuck with based on our genitals at birth, and apply it both to ourselves and to everyone else. We know that people who break the rules are severely punished and marginalized. Think: a feminine gay man who spends his entire life being shamed for not being “manly” enough, or the way a woman is slut-shamed and victim-blamed if she tempted a helpless man into assaulting her.

We all have implicit gender biases, and women and non-conforming gender individuals get the short end of the stick. Both men and women view men (especially tall, white, conventionally masculine men) as more trustworthy and competent, for example, so it starts to feel completely natural that they hold more positions of leadership, and make more money, and otherwise rule the world.

When we talk about living in a patriarchy, it simply means that this culture was historically built by men, for men, and most of us still view this as the natural order of things due to implicit gender biases that we keep passing on to our children. The patriarchy determines who is suitable for which job positions, who is believable in a trial, who gets access to bodily autonomy, and whose problems matter most.

Q: But… what about biology?

A: Many people really, really want to believe that men and women are each naturally drawn to all the gender roles and gender performance we shove on them, and they use “biology!” to defend their gender-obsessed actions.

First of all, I certainly recognize that there are some inherent differences between men and women beyond genitals, but it’s very difficult to tell the difference between which is nature and which is nurture when it comes to gender. Socialization is powerful shit, and we don’t have a gender-blind control group to see what would happen. (Trust me, I dream of this world often.)

That said, I feel like… if it’s really biology, then nobody should have a problem with us fighting the gender-based socialization. Because that would mean that even without teaching girls to be sexual objects and people-pleasers, they would become that way anyway! And even without teaching boys to feel entitled to women’s attention and bodies, or to repress all of their feelings except anger, that they would become violent, stoic, and emotionally stunted anyway!

I mean really, if biology is so strong, nothing would change if we stopped shoving gender performances down everyone’s throat. So maybe just let us try?

Most importantly though, using the “biology!” response is very rude, because if biology explained all of our gender biases and performances, then we wouldn’t have a feminism movement because nobody would be bothered by anything. But people are, well… bothered.

It’s kinda like how we used to think women weren’t capable of voting, owning land, having jobs, running a mile, being fulfilled without children, or anything else. They used to cry “biology!” to that shit too, and we’ve slowly proved it allllll wrong. When I hear the biology argument, what I hear is that you simply don’t want things to change because the status quo is working for you.

Q: Why do we need to talk so divisively about gender, why can’t we just focus on coming together as humans?

A: It has to be about gender because it’s already about gender. This question, though usually well-intentioned, would be like asking your doctor: why does my treatment have to be all about cancer? Well… because you have cancer, my friend. It would be silly to treat you as if you didn’t have cancer, just because cancer makes you uncomfortable, right? Yeah. That.

When gender is no longer a divisive issue, we’ll stop treating it like one.

But gender determines how people are treated and perceived, what life chances and opportunities they’ll get, what standards they’ll be held to, and how they’ll be encouraged to view their role and identity.

This isn’t healthy for anyone of any gender, but women and non-gender-conforming individuals are disproportionately negatively impacted by both implicit and explicit biases, discrimination, exploitation, and marginalization.

This is why we fight, my friends.

Whew.

Happy Tuesday.

<3 Jessi

The post {#TransparentTuesday} Why Do We Still Need Feminism? appeared first on Jessi Kneeland.

https://ift.tt/2zMzN36

[joshuabradleyn]

{#TransparentTuesday} Why Do We Still Need Feminism?

A man recently found out that I, the completely normal-looking and friendly young woman he had been chatting with, was a feminist.

This must have really shaken him up (I assume he’d never met one of us IRL before), because his next question was:

So you think women should be superior to men?

Naturally my first response was to assume he was kidding and laugh. Because… wut?

But no. This man was deadass serious. I have no idea what kind of people he had been exposed to, but he was completely under the impression that, since gender inequality no longer exists, feminists are trying to oppress men so that we can run the world.

The interesting thing was that this man really believes that since women are paid the same as men (false lol) and we can vote and own land now, so basically… any woman who feels oppressed at this point is just playing the victim card and want everything to be handed to them.

He also seemed to feel very strongly that identifying our movement according to gender is just “divisive” and that we should be focusing on “walking together” rather than “pitting ourselves against the good men trying to help us.”

Sigh.

Anyway, after this conversation turned sour, I got to thinking. Not about him, because he had nothing to offer but privileged nonsense, but about some of the beliefs we was spouting. I hear echoes of his views all the time, from good people who are genuinely struggling to understand why is feminism still a thing again…?

It’s very easy for people (aka people who aren’t actually reading feminist texts or following feminist leaders) to completely misunderstand the goal of feminism. They hear bits and pieces from snarky and inaccurate third-party sources like FOX news or whatever, and come away with the belief that feminism seems stupid, dangerous, or unnecessary.

If you frame it like “women whining about injustice instead of doing something about it” or “women wanting to oppress men,” then yeah, the whole thing is pretty unlikeable. Duh– that’s why so many anti-progressive (right-wing) sources spin it that way!

But those views are based on nothing more than malevolent gossip; a smear campaign designed to invalidate a movement that causes trouble for people who want to maintain the status quo.

That’s why I decided to set a few facts straight, and tackle some basic shit about what I’m fighting for when I say I’m a feminist. Obviously this is a much bigger topic than one essay’s worth, but I’ll do my best.

Q: Why do we still need feminism?

A: Because there is still gender inequality. There is still sexism, and discrimination based on gender, sexuality, and gender presentation. There is still exploitation and oppression based on gender.

Q: What is the goal of feminism?

A: There are many serious legislative and structural issues at the core of the feminist movement, like fighting for access to full reproductive health care and rights, access to affordable and high quality child-care options and paid family leave, an end to sexual exploitation and human trafficking, and fighting for better representation in media/entertainment as well as a more equal percentage of women in elected office, CEO positions, leadership positions.

Not to mention of course the right to not be sexually harassed/assaulted/raped, the right to not experience domestic violence, and equal pay for equal work. Oh, and the right to be LGBTQ or transgender without the barrage of violent and marginalizing fuckery that currently comes with that.

Note: It’s also important to acknowledge the intersections of oppression that cross categories such as race, ability, class, age, weight, etc. Intersectional feminism is about recognizing and fighting the various intersecting systems of power that marginalize and oppress people, because a black woman’s experience is completely different than a white woman’s experience, and a fat woman’s experience is completely different than a thin woman’s experience.

I wish I had more time to tackle the complicated intersectional landscape, but for the purpose of this essay, feminism’s goal is simply to end sexism, gender inequality, and gender bias.

Q: Who is the enemy of feminism?

A: Spoiler alert: it’s not men! Feminism is not anti man. Again, we’re just anti-sexism, anti-discrimination, anti-oppression, and anti-exploitation. The “enemy” is sexism, discrimination based on gender and sexuality, and gender inequality.

Q: What do you mean by sexism and gender inequality?

A: If you’ve never personally experienced gender or sexism inequality, they can be completely invisible.

Wikipedia says:

“Gender inequality refers to unequal treatment or perceptions of individuals wholly or partly due to their gender. It arises from differences in gender roles.”

So here’s the deal: Our culture is obsessed with gender differentiation. Before a baby is even born, we are consumed by the desire to categorize them based on their genitals (which is super creepy if you think about it), and we wrongly identify both sex and gender on a binary. You get to be just one of the two options, and anyone who doesn’t fit into one of those has to just pick whichever is “closest.”

Interestingly, intersex people are born all the time with a variety of unique reproductive organs and genitals that make it hard for them to check the box of either “boy” or “girl.” These people are often surgically altered at birth to make them fit whichever box is most convenient.

Isn’t that pretty fucked up? Like… we have a binary system and these babies don’t fit in with it, so we cut their bodies until they do. Oh, and in case you think this is a super rare occurrence, it’s not: intesex people are born at about the same rate as redheads.

Ok, so I take issue with the way our culture fetishes sex and gender right out the gate, and forces everyone to choose a binary option, but from there it only gets worse! Due to our obsession with gender, we shove gendered clothing, toys, and treatment on our children.

Our implicit gender biases (aka: biases that are below the level of consciousness) get passed on when we praise little girls for being cute, nice, pretty, and well-behaved, and we praise little boys for being smart, strong, fast, and clever. They get passed on when we buy our girls dolls and our boys trucks. They get passed on when we permit our boys to be aggressive and wild, but shame our girls for the same. They get passed on when we permit our girls to be sensitive and emotional, but shame our boys for the same. They get passed on when we put our little girls in dresses that limit movement and have no pockets, teaching her that her body is for looking at, not for doing stuff.

In short, we socialize our children to see their gender as the most fundamental part of their identity, and we teach them how to appropriately perform their gender so that they fit in with our sexist ideas of what gender should be.

It doesn’t get better from there though.

The perceptions we hold of each gender get stronger throughout a person’s life, and we chalk it all up to biology rather than the way we socialize children since before they’re born.

We perceive men as better at math and driving. We perceive women as better at nurturing and childcare. We see men as smart, and women as social. We assume men are better leaders, and women are better at domestic skills. We take for granted that men love sports and women, while women love shopping and makeup. We unconsciously believe men need to feel like useful providers, while women need to feel beautiful and desirable.

In short, most of us internalize the performance of gender that we got stuck with based on our genitals at birth, and apply it both to ourselves and to everyone else. We know that people who break the rules are severely punished and marginalized. Think: a feminine gay man who spends his entire life being shamed for not being “manly” enough, or the way a woman is slut-shamed and victim-blamed if she tempted a helpless man into assaulting her.

We all have implicit gender biases, and women and non-conforming gender individuals get the short end of the stick. Both men and women view men (especially tall, white, conventionally masculine men) as more trustworthy and competent, for example, so it starts to feel completely natural that they hold more positions of leadership, and make more money, and otherwise rule the world.

When we talk about living in a patriarchy, it simply means that this culture was historically built by men, for men, and most of us still view this as the natural order of things due to implicit gender biases that we keep passing on to our children. The patriarchy determines who is suitable for which job positions, who is believable in a trial, who gets access to bodily autonomy, and whose problems matter most.

Q: But… what about biology?

A: Many people really, really want to believe that men and women are each naturally drawn to all the gender roles and gender performance we shove on them, and they use “biology!” to defend their gender-obsessed actions.

First of all, I certainly recognize that there are some inherent differences between men and women beyond genitals, but it’s very difficult to tell the difference between which is nature and which is nurture when it comes to gender. Socialization is powerful shit, and we don’t have a gender-blind control group to see what would happen. (Trust me, I dream of this world often.)

That said, I feel like… if it’s really biology, then nobody should have a problem with us fighting the gender-based socialization. Because that would mean that even without teaching girls to be sexual objects and people-pleasers, they would become that way anyway! And even without teaching boys to feel entitled to women’s attention and bodies, or to repress all of their feelings except anger, that they would become violent, stoic, and emotionally stunted anyway!

I mean really, if biology is so strong, nothing would change if we stopped shoving gender performances down everyone’s throat. So maybe just let us try?

Most importantly though, using the “biology!” response is very rude, because if biology explained all of our gender biases and performances, then we wouldn’t have a feminism movement because nobody would be bothered by anything. But people are, well… bothered.

It’s kinda like how we used to think women weren’t capable of voting, owning land, having jobs, running a mile, being fulfilled without children, or anything else. They used to cry “biology!” to that shit too, and we’ve slowly proved it allllll wrong. When I hear the biology argument, what I hear is that you simply don’t want things to change because the status quo is working for you.

Q: Why do we need to talk so divisively about gender, why can’t we just focus on coming together as humans?

A: It has to be about gender because it’s already about gender. This question, though usually well-intentioned, would be like asking your doctor: why does my treatment have to be all about cancer? Well… because you have cancer, my friend. It would be silly to treat you as if you didn’t have cancer, just because cancer makes you uncomfortable, right? Yeah. That.

When gender is no longer a divisive issue, we’ll stop treating it like one.

But gender determines how people are treated and perceived, what life chances and opportunities they’ll get, what standards they’ll be held to, and how they’ll be encouraged to view their role and identity.

This isn’t healthy for anyone of any gender, but women and non-gender-conforming individuals are disproportionately negatively impacted by both implicit and explicit biases, discrimination, exploitation, and marginalization.

This is why we fight, my friends.

Whew.

Happy Tuesday.

<3 Jessi

The post {#TransparentTuesday} Why Do We Still Need Feminism? appeared first on Jessi Kneeland.

https://ift.tt/2zMzN36

[neilmillerne]

{#TransparentTuesday} Why Do We Still Need Feminism?

A man recently found out that I, the completely normal-looking and friendly young woman he had been chatting with, was a feminist.

This must have really shaken him up (I assume he’d never met one of us IRL before), because his next question was:

So you think women should be superior to men?

Naturally my first response was to assume he was kidding and laugh. Because… wut?

But no. This man was deadass serious. I have no idea what kind of people he had been exposed to, but he was completely under the impression that, since gender inequality no longer exists, feminists are trying to oppress men so that we can run the world.

The interesting thing was that this man really believes that since women are paid the same as men (false lol) and we can vote and own land now, so basically… any woman who feels oppressed at this point is just playing the victim card and want everything to be handed to them.

He also seemed to feel very strongly that identifying our movement according to gender is just “divisive” and that we should be focusing on “walking together” rather than “pitting ourselves against the good men trying to help us.”

Sigh.

Anyway, after this conversation turned sour, I got to thinking. Not about him, because he had nothing to offer but privileged nonsense, but about some of the beliefs we was spouting. I hear echoes of his views all the time, from good people who are genuinely struggling to understand why is feminism still a thing again…?

It’s very easy for people (aka people who aren’t actually reading feminist texts or following feminist leaders) to completely misunderstand the goal of feminism. They hear bits and pieces from snarky and inaccurate third-party sources like FOX news or whatever, and come away with the belief that feminism seems stupid, dangerous, or unnecessary.

If you frame it like “women whining about injustice instead of doing something about it” or “women wanting to oppress men,” then yeah, the whole thing is pretty unlikeable. Duh– that’s why so many anti-progressive (right-wing) sources spin it that way!

But those views are based on nothing more than malevolent gossip; a smear campaign designed to invalidate a movement that causes trouble for people who want to maintain the status quo.

That’s why I decided to set a few facts straight, and tackle some basic shit about what I’m fighting for when I say I’m a feminist. Obviously this is a much bigger topic than one essay’s worth, but I’ll do my best.

Q: Why do we still need feminism?

A: Because there is still gender inequality. There is still sexism, and discrimination based on gender, sexuality, and gender presentation. There is still exploitation and oppression based on gender.

Q: What is the goal of feminism?

A: There are many serious legislative and structural issues at the core of the feminist movement, like fighting for access to full reproductive health care and rights, access to affordable and high quality child-care options and paid family leave, an end to sexual exploitation and human trafficking, and fighting for better representation in media/entertainment as well as a more equal percentage of women in elected office, CEO positions, leadership positions.

Not to mention of course the right to not be sexually harassed/assaulted/raped, the right to not experience domestic violence, and equal pay for equal work. Oh, and the right to be LGBTQ or transgender without the barrage of violent and marginalizing fuckery that currently comes with that.

Note: It’s also important to acknowledge the intersections of oppression that cross categories such as race, ability, class, age, weight, etc. Intersectional feminism is about recognizing and fighting the various intersecting systems of power that marginalize and oppress people, because a black woman’s experience is completely different than a white woman’s experience, and a fat woman’s experience is completely different than a thin woman’s experience.

I wish I had more time to tackle the complicated intersectional landscape, but for the purpose of this essay, feminism’s goal is simply to end sexism, gender inequality, and gender bias.

Q: Who is the enemy of feminism?

A: Spoiler alert: it’s not men! Feminism is not anti man. Again, we’re just anti-sexism, anti-discrimination, anti-oppression, and anti-exploitation. The “enemy” is sexism, discrimination based on gender and sexuality, and gender inequality.

Q: What do you mean by sexism and gender inequality?

A: If you’ve never personally experienced gender or sexism inequality, they can be completely invisible.

Wikipedia says:

“Gender inequality refers to unequal treatment or perceptions of individuals wholly or partly due to their gender. It arises from differences in gender roles.”

So here’s the deal: Our culture is obsessed with gender differentiation. Before a baby is even born, we are consumed by the desire to categorize them based on their genitals (which is super creepy if you think about it), and we wrongly identify both sex and gender on a binary. You get to be just one of the two options, and anyone who doesn’t fit into one of those has to just pick whichever is “closest.”

Interestingly, intersex people are born all the time with a variety of unique reproductive organs and genitals that make it hard for them to check the box of either “boy” or “girl.” These people are often surgically altered at birth to make them fit whichever box is most convenient.

Isn’t that pretty fucked up? Like… we have a binary system and these babies don’t fit in with it, so we cut their bodies until they do. Oh, and in case you think this is a super rare occurrence, it’s not: intesex people are born at about the same rate as redheads.

Ok, so I take issue with the way our culture fetishes sex and gender right out the gate, and forces everyone to choose a binary option, but from there it only gets worse! Due to our obsession with gender, we shove gendered clothing, toys, and treatment on our children.

Our implicit gender biases (aka: biases that are below the level of consciousness) get passed on when we praise little girls for being cute, nice, pretty, and well-behaved, and we praise little boys for being smart, strong, fast, and clever. They get passed on when we buy our girls dolls and our boys trucks. They get passed on when we permit our boys to be aggressive and wild, but shame our girls for the same. They get passed on when we permit our girls to be sensitive and emotional, but shame our boys for the same. They get passed on when we put our little girls in dresses that limit movement and have no pockets, teaching her that her body is for looking at, not for doing stuff.

In short, we socialize our children to see their gender as the most fundamental part of their identity, and we teach them how to appropriately perform their gender so that they fit in with our sexist ideas of what gender should be.

It doesn’t get better from there though.

The perceptions we hold of each gender get stronger throughout a person’s life, and we chalk it all up to biology rather than the way we socialize children since before they’re born.

We perceive men as better at math and driving. We perceive women as better at nurturing and childcare. We see men as smart, and women as social. We assume men are better leaders, and women are better at domestic skills. We take for granted that men love sports and women, while women love shopping and makeup. We unconsciously believe men need to feel like useful providers, while women need to feel beautiful and desirable.

In short, most of us internalize the performance of gender that we got stuck with based on our genitals at birth, and apply it both to ourselves and to everyone else. We know that people who break the rules are severely punished and marginalized. Think: a feminine gay man who spends his entire life being shamed for not being “manly” enough, or the way a woman is slut-shamed and victim-blamed if she tempted a helpless man into assaulting her.

We all have implicit gender biases, and women and non-conforming gender individuals get the short end of the stick. Both men and women view men (especially tall, white, conventionally masculine men) as more trustworthy and competent, for example, so it starts to feel completely natural that they hold more positions of leadership, and make more money, and otherwise rule the world.

When we talk about living in a patriarchy, it simply means that this culture was historically built by men, for men, and most of us still view this as the natural order of things due to implicit gender biases that we keep passing on to our children. The patriarchy determines who is suitable for which job positions, who is believable in a trial, who gets access to bodily autonomy, and whose problems matter most.

Q: But… what about biology?

A: Many people really, really want to believe that men and women are each naturally drawn to all the gender roles and gender performance we shove on them, and they use “biology!” to defend their gender-obsessed actions.

First of all, I certainly recognize that there are some inherent differences between men and women beyond genitals, but it’s very difficult to tell the difference between which is nature and which is nurture when it comes to gender. Socialization is powerful shit, and we don’t have a gender-blind control group to see what would happen. (Trust me, I dream of this world often.)

That said, I feel like… if it’s really biology, then nobody should have a problem with us fighting the gender-based socialization. Because that would mean that even without teaching girls to be sexual objects and people-pleasers, they would become that way anyway! And even without teaching boys to feel entitled to women’s attention and bodies, or to repress all of their feelings except anger, that they would become violent, stoic, and emotionally stunted anyway!

I mean really, if biology is so strong, nothing would change if we stopped shoving gender performances down everyone’s throat. So maybe just let us try?

Most importantly though, using the “biology!” response is very rude, because if biology explained all of our gender biases and performances, then we wouldn’t have a feminism movement because nobody would be bothered by anything. But people are, well… bothered.

It’s kinda like how we used to think women weren’t capable of voting, owning land, having jobs, running a mile, being fulfilled without children, or anything else. They used to cry “biology!” to that shit too, and we’ve slowly proved it allllll wrong. When I hear the biology argument, what I hear is that you simply don’t want things to change because the status quo is working for you.

Q: Why do we need to talk so divisively about gender, why can’t we just focus on coming together as humans?

A: It has to be about gender because it’s already about gender. This question, though usually well-intentioned, would be like asking your doctor: why does my treatment have to be all about cancer? Well… because you have cancer, my friend. It would be silly to treat you as if you didn’t have cancer, just because cancer makes you uncomfortable, right? Yeah. That.

When gender is no longer a divisive issue, we’ll stop treating it like one.

But gender determines how people are treated and perceived, what life chances and opportunities they’ll get, what standards they’ll be held to, and how they’ll be encouraged to view their role and identity.

This isn’t healthy for anyone of any gender, but women and non-gender-conforming individuals are disproportionately negatively impacted by both implicit and explicit biases, discrimination, exploitation, and marginalization.

This is why we fight, my friends.

Whew.

Happy Tuesday.

<3 Jessi

The post {#TransparentTuesday} Why Do We Still Need Feminism? appeared first on Jessi Kneeland.

https://ift.tt/2zMzN36

[almajonesnjna]

{#TransparentTuesday} Why Do We Still Need Feminism?

A man recently found out that I, the completely normal-looking and friendly young woman he had been chatting with, was a feminist.

This must have really shaken him up (I assume he’d never met one of us IRL before), because his next question was:

So you think women should be superior to men?

Naturally my first response was to assume he was kidding and laugh. Because… wut?

But no. This man was deadass serious. I have no idea what kind of people he had been exposed to, but he was completely under the impression that, since gender inequality no longer exists, feminists are trying to oppress men so that we can run the world.

The interesting thing was that this man really believes that since women are paid the same as men (false lol) and we can vote and own land now, so basically… any woman who feels oppressed at this point is just playing the victim card and want everything to be handed to them.

He also seemed to feel very strongly that identifying our movement according to gender is just “divisive” and that we should be focusing on “walking together” rather than “pitting ourselves against the good men trying to help us.”

Sigh.

Anyway, after this conversation turned sour, I got to thinking. Not about him, because he had nothing to offer but privileged nonsense, but about some of the beliefs we was spouting. I hear echoes of his views all the time, from good people who are genuinely struggling to understand why is feminism still a thing again…?

It’s very easy for people (aka people who aren’t actually reading feminist texts or following feminist leaders) to completely misunderstand the goal of feminism. They hear bits and pieces from snarky and inaccurate third-party sources like FOX news or whatever, and come away with the belief that feminism seems stupid, dangerous, or unnecessary.

If you frame it like “women whining about injustice instead of doing something about it” or “women wanting to oppress men,” then yeah, the whole thing is pretty unlikeable. Duh– that’s why so many anti-progressive (right-wing) sources spin it that way!

But those views are based on nothing more than malevolent gossip; a smear campaign designed to invalidate a movement that causes trouble for people who want to maintain the status quo.

That’s why I decided to set a few facts straight, and tackle some basic shit about what I’m fighting for when I say I’m a feminist. Obviously this is a much bigger topic than one essay’s worth, but I’ll do my best.

Q: Why do we still need feminism?

A: Because there is still gender inequality. There is still sexism, and discrimination based on gender, sexuality, and gender presentation. There is still exploitation and oppression based on gender.

Q: What is the goal of feminism?

A: There are many serious legislative and structural issues at the core of the feminist movement, like fighting for access to full reproductive health care and rights, access to affordable and high quality child-care options and paid family leave, an end to sexual exploitation and human trafficking, and fighting for better representation in media/entertainment as well as a more equal percentage of women in elected office, CEO positions, leadership positions.

Not to mention of course the right to not be sexually harassed/assaulted/raped, the right to not experience domestic violence, and equal pay for equal work. Oh, and the right to be LGBTQ or transgender without the barrage of violent and marginalizing fuckery that currently comes with that.

Note: It’s also important to acknowledge the intersections of oppression that cross categories such as race, ability, class, age, weight, etc. Intersectional feminism is about recognizing and fighting the various intersecting systems of power that marginalize and oppress people, because a black woman’s experience is completely different than a white woman’s experience, and a fat woman’s experience is completely different than a thin woman’s experience.

I wish I had more time to tackle the complicated intersectional landscape, but for the purpose of this essay, feminism’s goal is simply to end sexism, gender inequality, and gender bias.

Q: Who is the enemy of feminism?

A: Spoiler alert: it’s not men! Feminism is not anti man. Again, we’re just anti-sexism, anti-discrimination, anti-oppression, and anti-exploitation. The “enemy” is sexism, discrimination based on gender and sexuality, and gender inequality.

Q: What do you mean by sexism and gender inequality?

A: If you’ve never personally experienced gender or sexism inequality, they can be completely invisible.

Wikipedia says:

“Gender inequality refers to unequal treatment or perceptions of individuals wholly or partly due to their gender. It arises from differences in gender roles.”

So here’s the deal: Our culture is obsessed with gender differentiation. Before a baby is even born, we are consumed by the desire to categorize them based on their genitals (which is super creepy if you think about it), and we wrongly identify both sex and gender on a binary. You get to be just one of the two options, and anyone who doesn’t fit into one of those has to just pick whichever is “closest.”

Interestingly, intersex people are born all the time with a variety of unique reproductive organs and genitals that make it hard for them to check the box of either “boy” or “girl.” These people are often surgically altered at birth to make them fit whichever box is most convenient.

Isn’t that pretty fucked up? Like… we have a binary system and these babies don’t fit in with it, so we cut their bodies until they do. Oh, and in case you think this is a super rare occurrence, it’s not: intesex people are born at about the same rate as redheads.

Ok, so I take issue with the way our culture fetishes sex and gender right out the gate, and forces everyone to choose a binary option, but from there it only gets worse! Due to our obsession with gender, we shove gendered clothing, toys, and treatment on our children.

Our implicit gender biases (aka: biases that are below the level of consciousness) get passed on when we praise little girls for being cute, nice, pretty, and well-behaved, and we praise little boys for being smart, strong, fast, and clever. They get passed on when we buy our girls dolls and our boys trucks. They get passed on when we permit our boys to be aggressive and wild, but shame our girls for the same. They get passed on when we permit our girls to be sensitive and emotional, but shame our boys for the same. They get passed on when we put our little girls in dresses that limit movement and have no pockets, teaching her that her body is for looking at, not for doing stuff.

In short, we socialize our children to see their gender as the most fundamental part of their identity, and we teach them how to appropriately perform their gender so that they fit in with our sexist ideas of what gender should be.

It doesn’t get better from there though.

The perceptions we hold of each gender get stronger throughout a person’s life, and we chalk it all up to biology rather than the way we socialize children since before they’re born.

We perceive men as better at math and driving. We perceive women as better at nurturing and childcare. We see men as smart, and women as social. We assume men are better leaders, and women are better at domestic skills. We take for granted that men love sports and women, while women love shopping and makeup. We unconsciously believe men need to feel like useful providers, while women need to feel beautiful and desirable.

In short, most of us internalize the performance of gender that we got stuck with based on our genitals at birth, and apply it both to ourselves and to everyone else. We know that people who break the rules are severely punished and marginalized. Think: a feminine gay man who spends his entire life being shamed for not being “manly” enough, or the way a woman is slut-shamed and victim-blamed if she tempted a helpless man into assaulting her.

We all have implicit gender biases, and women and non-conforming gender individuals get the short end of the stick. Both men and women view men (especially tall, white, conventionally masculine men) as more trustworthy and competent, for example, so it starts to feel completely natural that they hold more positions of leadership, and make more money, and otherwise rule the world.

When we talk about living in a patriarchy, it simply means that this culture was historically built by men, for men, and most of us still view this as the natural order of things due to implicit gender biases that we keep passing on to our children. The patriarchy determines who is suitable for which job positions, who is believable in a trial, who gets access to bodily autonomy, and whose problems matter most.

Q: But… what about biology?

A: Many people really, really want to believe that men and women are each naturally drawn to all the gender roles and gender performance we shove on them, and they use “biology!” to defend their gender-obsessed actions.

First of all, I certainly recognize that there are some inherent differences between men and women beyond genitals, but it’s very difficult to tell the difference between which is nature and which is nurture when it comes to gender. Socialization is powerful shit, and we don’t have a gender-blind control group to see what would happen. (Trust me, I dream of this world often.)

That said, I feel like… if it’s really biology, then nobody should have a problem with us fighting the gender-based socialization. Because that would mean that even without teaching girls to be sexual objects and people-pleasers, they would become that way anyway! And even without teaching boys to feel entitled to women’s attention and bodies, or to repress all of their feelings except anger, that they would become violent, stoic, and emotionally stunted anyway!

I mean really, if biology is so strong, nothing would change if we stopped shoving gender performances down everyone’s throat. So maybe just let us try?

Most importantly though, using the “biology!” response is very rude, because if biology explained all of our gender biases and performances, then we wouldn’t have a feminism movement because nobody would be bothered by anything. But people are, well… bothered.

It’s kinda like how we used to think women weren’t capable of voting, owning land, having jobs, running a mile, being fulfilled without children, or anything else. They used to cry “biology!” to that shit too, and we’ve slowly proved it allllll wrong. When I hear the biology argument, what I hear is that you simply don’t want things to change because the status quo is working for you.

Q: Why do we need to talk so divisively about gender, why can’t we just focus on coming together as humans?

A: It has to be about gender because it’s already about gender. This question, though usually well-intentioned, would be like asking your doctor: why does my treatment have to be all about cancer? Well… because you have cancer, my friend. It would be silly to treat you as if you didn’t have cancer, just because cancer makes you uncomfortable, right? Yeah. That.

When gender is no longer a divisive issue, we’ll stop treating it like one.

But gender determines how people are treated and perceived, what life chances and opportunities they’ll get, what standards they’ll be held to, and how they’ll be encouraged to view their role and identity.

This isn’t healthy for anyone of any gender, but women and non-gender-conforming individuals are disproportionately negatively impacted by both implicit and explicit biases, discrimination, exploitation, and marginalization.

This is why we fight, my friends.

Whew.

Happy Tuesday.

<3 Jessi

The post {#TransparentTuesday} Why Do We Still Need Feminism? appeared first on Jessi Kneeland.

https://ift.tt/2zMzN36

[opinicus553-blog1]

Thoughtful Jewelry Gift Tips For a Fantastic Mother's Day Present

You'd most absolutely like to convey your appreciate for your mom as well as the most appropriate time to do this is Mother's Day. Offering a piece of jewelry will make this day memorable for her. You'll be able to effortlessly recognize what makes a jewelry gift so unique. Every time your mom wears the piece you gifted so lovingly, she will likely be reminded of the adore! Luckily, it's not tough to discover jewelry things locally or in the on line shops, specially equipped for providing a wide array of jewelry items for Mother's Day. You'll be able to discover jewelry that may be appropriate for women of all ages and designs. Selecting Jewelry for your Mom Due to the fact jewelry types essentially the most popular solution as a gift on Mother's Day, you could locate it overwhelming to get a piece that your mother would treasure forever. It can be great should you give a prolonged thought to the personal style of one's mom, while keeping in thoughts what you anticipate that piece to represent in your behalf. Listed here are several helpful hints to assist you select the sort of jewelry your mom will cherish: Does she put on lots of jewelry? In case your mom likes wearing jewelry often, she would surely have quite a few pieces with her and she would surely be delighted to possess a brand new piece incorporated in her wardrobe. So you simply must make a choice between a new necklace as well as a ring. If she isn't applied to wearing jewelry all that generally, you will must very carefully think about the sort of jewelry that she can feel comfy wearing. You might take into account gifting a bracelet or perhaps a watch in case your mother is quite modest, as she can effortlessly mix either with the two with her normal garments.

Get to understand the sort of jewelry she loves Does your mom like wearing pieces of elaborate traditional jewelry or the newest editions of these? Can be she prefers obtaining exclusive artistic designs. What does she prefer, gold or silver? Some women like getting an assortment of golden and silver jewelry as a portion of their collection. However, quite a few could prefer only the yellow or white metal. It shouldn't be tough to make out that. Just possess a look at her existing collection of jewelry and you'll get a pretty precise thought of her preferences. Is she applied to wearing some piece or the other just about every day? It is not uncommon for some moms to favor possessing pieces of jewelry which they can use each and every day, although some would like to have selected pieces that they are able to mix and match with their different dresses. When searching for jewelry that she could wear more generally, you should be seeking for one thing that would go along nicely with her unique outfits, casual at the same time stylish. Bracelets and rings might be worth contemplating as she can certainly use them with other pieces of jewelry. A thing that need to match her wardrobe Hold your mother's clothing in mind when selecting jewelry for her. Needless to say, she will probably be a lot more appreciative of such jewelry that conveniently goes in conjunction with the style of dresses she typically prefers wearing. For those who believe along the above lines when hunting for jewelry as present for the mom on Mother's Day, you're most likely to produce the appropriate gift for the mother. Mom Theme Jewelry Gift Suggestions for the whole Family members There is no dearth of jewelry tips for children, and also for husbands that would make an ideal present on Mother's Day. Some examples comply with: Lockets These are ideally suited for holding any unique photograph or an object of fantastic interest. You could get them in white and yellow metals, too in resins. You will discover a sizable array of lockets, varying from the classic heart shapes towards the ones obtaining special artwork. They make a great option for kids searching to offer a terrific Mother's Day present to their mothers.

Bracelets Perhaps you might be already conscious of Pandora collection, having a modern day imaginative twist on bracelets with traditional charm. Bracelets which have considerable charms linked to all family members, embroidered styles, tennis bracelets and carved silver bands kind some of the a lot more well-known choices that make an exceptional souvenir in the entire family members or simply from dad. Necklaces and pendants You could procure numerous mom theme necklaces and pendants. These objects with mom themes could show mothers hugging her kids or an animal mother holding her baby. You are able to also get them with stamped messages including "Love You Mom." Watches In case you are contemplating a gift with sensible capabilities, gift your mom a watch. She can use it just about every day with almost something. Yet another valuable function of watches is the fact that you'll be able to invest in them in various designs and types. You might decide on to gift 1 obtaining conventional design and style, a very fashionable design and style or probably an incredibly artistic piece. Discover a lot more info love you to the moon and back jewelry

[emileehembrow-blog]

The Latest Trends In Bridal Fashion Jewelry

The world is now too much acutely aware about style. Nearly day-after-day a brand new development makes headlines and folks quickly start following it. There's much affect of the western culture everywhere in the world right from hairdressing to styling their ft. One other thing that has grown Fashion expert is the usage of technology with fashion. It has a bigger hand in influencing the fashion. It is because whatever one attire up they take a picture of it and submit them on their individual social media profiles. Individuals who like them would certainly emulate the style after they get ready.

Fashion has not only influenced the common folks but it surely has impressed the workplace goers too. They also try to keep a trendy look although of their formal wears. Nonetheless, there are two sorts of people within the society. One group are the followers like now we have mentioned earlier and the opposite group are the ones who have little to do with vogue. They observe their very own model and add a distinct variation to the ongoing fashion traits. Even that generally becomes a pattern which others intend to comply with.

What fashion actually means?

Trend has nothing to do with hair or makeup. Neither it's concerning the cosmetics. It's the good looks the allure that one adds to his or her persona by sporting anything they like. All that matters is that how one teams up the equipment and the footwear with their costume. It doesn't must be the most costly clothes and equipment. An off-the-cuff one can also work wonders if accessorized in the appropriate manner.

What are the tendencies?

Vogue developments hold changing each season. It has additionally undergone a huge change from the sooner times. Earlier the English girls used to wear long gowns and flowery clothes with a hat on. Now the pattern has shifted to denims and tops.

Trend used to be a part of an actor's life but that has now change into part of the daily life. Trend has grow to be a big source of earning money. Many of the youths are making money by becoming vogue experts and giving folks recommendation. They're making channels in YouTube and internet hosting reveals on the television.

How will you keep warm this winter whereas nonetheless wanting cool? We have put collectively a information with some recommendations on which coats are hot right now. Starting things off is the aviator. This is a coat that's designed to maintain pilots heat while they're flying, so you recognize it is going to be nice at retaining you heat on the bottom. It seems especially good in black leather-based or tan suede, but there's an entire host of sorts you possibly can choose from to get the one which's best for you.

In the event you're after an extended coat, then the trench may very well be perfect for you. Ranging from knee to ankle length, these coats are tailor-made, that means they look improbable on everyone and their traditional lower means they will never exit of favor. Leather-based is a popular cloth for trenches but wool is also great for those cold nights. Go together with dark colours akin to midnight blue or grey so you'll be able to put on your coat with something, making it value for money in addition to timeless.

Maybe, although, you are not the kind of guy who likes tailoring, during which case, the duffel coat is an excellent different. It is definitely heat, and it's free becoming means which you could wear it over anything with out feeling restricted by the fabric. A key characteristic of duffel coats is their toggle buttons, which look fantastic buttoned up against the chilly, helping you look fashionable whereas maintaining out the nippiness. Put on it over anything for immediate winter style.

One other coat that provides effortless winter type immediately is the military coat. These coats are good and look sensible in dark blue and gray. They are often brief jackets or flooring size greatcoats, however it doesn't matter what, there may be bound to be an option to swimsuit you. This is one of those coats that's versatile sufficient to be worn by everybody and their close fit means they look immediately smart over any outfit while nonetheless retaining you heat on these cold days.

OK, so coats don't suit everyone's style. Possibly you wish to layer up and throw a lighter jacket excessive, or want a extra casual model. If so, then the denim jacket is a superb option. They come in loose styles or as a more fitted choice, which is brilliant for achieving the smart-casual look. Denim is one of those fabrics that goes with all the pieces, so you will not have to worry about coordinating. Once more, go for a darkish-colored coat to keep away from clashing and you'll't go far mistaken.

Right before she befriends diamonds, dolls are all the time a girl's closest companions. Hours will whiz previous them with not a single boring moment as they worry over their dolls. With regard to dolls, women by no means tire of the make-consider of sewing garments, doing makeover, dressing her up and many others. But in a matter of a few years, dolls resemble less and fewer the cute companion to a picnic on the park, and an increasing number of of the good and chic corporate girl. And now, such new tastes in enjoying makeover video games online at the moment are here as properly.

Cloe, Yasmin, Jade and Sasha, members of the teenage sensation Bratz dolls, have each fashion fancy you would dream of. As everyone the world over knows, Bratz are the new dolls on the block, with a ardour for passion, and are the teen answer to the queen of the fashion doll universe, Barbie. In case you are keen to catch their latest fashion adventure and be part of some learning on vogue, then a Bratz makeover recreation is your simple passport to their world. Once you'll be able to have Bratz video games as a part of your day by day routine, you'll be in the middle of the motion and on the scene as the unbelievable and the glamorous Bratz as they face head-on each fashion dilemma any social perform can present their means.

With Bratz makeover games, the seemingly distant dream of having the ability to check out any present outfit can materialize now with the Bratz. With the Bratz, women make the style, and never vice versa, so to speak. Each individual merchandise of clothes design now becomes a jewel that is a potential complement to effect you might be after.

With the Info Superhighway referred to as the Web at our fingertips, you could have at your disposal web sites that provide on-line makeover video games. Except for games where you can provide a gown makeover to your doll, there are available accessories too that are surefire flatterers and complements, like earrings, and necklaces. Discuss being hassle-free for fogeys! There may be completely nothing right here about sewing actual doll garments, collecting accessories and even buying an actual doll. Everything occurs on on single display screen.

Online games are very a lot known lately for being consumer-pleasant. Only one living proof for being rich in graphics too, are Bratz video games. What basically occurs is that you simply as a participant have to move several levels of difficulties and challenges to realize rewards like "cash" to purchase garments or meals in your doll. The video games are literally various in theme, ranging from gown up games the place you get to scroll via a whole bunch of dream outfits, to magnificence makeover video games, to timer- and buzzer-beating race games.

There may be nothing worse than taking a look at your clothes once you're on the point of exit and finding you "don't have anything to put on" what number of times has that happened you? And actually, no matter how massive your wardrobe is, unless you start to discover ways to manage it properly, you'll at all times run into this drawback. I hope I can provide you some useful tricks to get more out of your wardrobe.

Proper on the top my number one tip for you is to assume and plan in advance what you will put on for an upcoming occasion; discovering something to put on as your are preparing will make it nearly unimaginable to get your look right and time stress from running late, in the event you're like me, will greater than seemingly push you to put on something you're not 100% snug with. Having your garments deliberate and prepared will make actually getting ready so much less aggravating and depart you more time, and all of us need that, in your equally necessary make-up and hair.

With good planning in advance the garments you choose to wear will make you're feeling nice, a superb look gives you confidence and make you stand out from the rest and never depart you feeling awkward and hiding on the back.

An essential a part of planning is to study and understanding learn how to mix and match the clothes you've, coordinating your garments effectively is an typically ignored skill, however when you could have mastered it and know what goes properly with what, it'll make your whole clothes go further.

I've been buying garments for a while professionally, I see many people buying new outfits with out excited about the garments they already have and how these will match with them. Shopping for a new tops, for example, one that you could wear with objects from your existing wardrobe is not going to only save you cash it makes far more sense, cleverly recycling your clothes like this shows your smarter at vogue.

An awesome ideas for studying about coordinating is while wanting at the images exhibiting the clothes on our web site, you may get some very good concepts of blending and matching by seeing what the models are wearing as an outfit and not just the garment listed, see how the models can have matched the merchandise with different garments (by the way in which all the clothes are usually taken from our items that we've got) and try to see what you already personal which you could add to this in the identical method.

Another good idea is to have a look to see if the garment is available in completely different colors, trying on the same merchandise in numerous colours you will note other ideas for coordinating, as no doubt the garments will have been blended and matched once more. Keep wanting and studying this way until you understand the many totally different manner one single item of clothes might be combined and match many times, this manner the training is straightforward, fun and with none strain.

Apart from buying garments that can be swapped around with the ones you already have, try buying garments that may look great for a night out but can be worn at one other time when mixed with your day garments.

Do not forget that garments are supposed to be fun, don't get pressured about your wardrobe; by studying easy methods to handle your garments you'll find yourself spending less time getting ready and extra time having enjoyable.

I loved spending just a few moments to inform you my ideas on planning and coordinating your clothes I hope I've given you some concepts that may provide help to find out about planning outfits together with mixing and matching your wardrobe, in case you need some extra ideas you'll be able to at all times meet up with me on Facebook, the place in case you have not guessed, I do like to speak!

Two years in the past, in the event you ask me anything about vogue, I would simply stare at you questioning what you're speaking about. This shouldn't be shocking. I'm a style idiot in any case.

I don't even know how you can gown decently. That's probably why I am still single now. I just can't entice the attention of ladies. But I am determined to get myself out of this sorry state. That is why I've decided to study extra about trend.

And you realize what? I actually love learning about vogue. And I feel you must too! I'm not kidding! I am critical!

Why You Should Begin Paying Consideration to Trend

Are you aware why you should learning more about style? As a result of people do decide a guide by its cover! It's possible you'll not prefer it but this can be a fact. As long as you might be in this society, individuals are going to evaluate you want a e book. Individuals are going to have a look at what you are wearing, your coiffure and so on.

Once you begin selecting up new knowledge within the style enviornment, you gown sense will enhance. You'll start to know how you can dress well.

Whenever you look good, individuals will start to take you extra significantly. Individuals will begin to be extra well mannered in direction of you. You will discover that it's simpler to achieve success when you could have the 'image of success.

[moesunamigendertheory-blog]

Project Write-up: Theorist Influences on Metaphors and the Sexist Alphabet

One salient influence on the content of Metaphors and the Sexist Alphabet for Phillips Academy was the theory of Carol Mavor, author of Pleasures Taken, a text analyzing the influence of sexuality and autonomy of the subjects within the photographic medium. In Pleasures, Mavor writes of one woman: “Hannah’s pictures annihilate us by refusing categorization, which then undoes our subjectivity . . . As Lacan remarked, ‘The picture is in my eye. But I am not in the picture” (Mavor 115). How does the patriarchy inform presence in the real world, and within the photographed image of Metaphors and Sexist Alphabet? In Rr: Racism, for example, a white woman commands the attention of the camera, blocking from view two women of color who, it is barely apparent, look at one another with frustration. In Oo: Objectification, set among bottles of shampoo and perfume, a woman’s face takes on the appearance of an appliance, separated from her body and placed among the inanimate. The picture is in her eye, in other words, but she is not in the picture. Within the community at large, the role of the camera in erasure is clear: the commercial camera’s love affair with white bodies serves to objectify white women and erase people of color while personal use of the camera allows the individual to force the subject into an attitude that expresses how the photographer views that subject. It is thus that Sexist Alphabet was designed to explore and test the power of presence as it is influenced by marginalization; here, women become objects and props to the agenda of male dominance. Additionally, Mavor suggests the ethics of “pleasures taken,” or the ability of the camera to disenfranchise and violate the subject. Sexist Alphabet explores different power dynamics—oppression between students, the injustice enabled by the administration, greater themes of subjugation not specific to Andover—in order to discuss the way in which pleasure is taken from the subjects of the photograph by the society in which they live.

With her theory of performativity in gender, Butler informed the creation of both Sexist Alphabet and Metaphors. As Metaphors delineates the ways in which sexism and misogyny function, Sexist Alphabet applies those forms of oppression to the context of Andover, allowing the audience to appreciate the salience of those themes in their own lives, as well as their own complicity with those systems. Within Metaphors’ Clenched Hand/Open Hand, the theme of performativity is directly explored; just as the hand clenches upon the flowered necklace, our society is inclined to hold tightly to the gender norms that govern our behavior. Because many of the people featured in Sexist Alphabet—including the project creator herself—do not align themselves with the values or beliefs depicted in the photographs in which they appear, an aspect of performativity was necessary to the project. This was perhaps most visible in Ff: F*ckboy, in which a young man in sportswear makes a gesture well-known as a symbol of the young men who participate in toxic masculinity and rape culture. The student himself self-identifies as a feminist, and professed his distaste for f*ckboy culture; in order for him to participate in the project, therefore, it was necessary for him to briefly assume a brand of masculinity that was not his own. Similarly, in Ll: Locker Room Talk, the male students involved in the photograph approached the staging of the shot with sheepish humor, simultaneously acknowledging both the ridiculousness they perceived in the macho behavior traditionally involved with the locker room and the fact that the nation’s current president is now generally associated with the toxic masculinity it evokes.

Butler’s theory of gender performativity impacted the choice of Buddhism as an inspiration for the Metaphors series. Like Gender and Sexuality Studies, Buddhism seeks to destabilize and reconstruct reality as it is easily perceived, and is rich with visual metaphors that show the constant evolution of of reality. This is a consequence of one of the Four Noble Truths in Buddhism, which dictates that that delusion is at the root of all human suffering, and the spiritual path in Buddhism seeks to untangle the mind from these biases. The Buddhist acknowledgement of the constructedness of all experience has a specific resonance with Judith Butler’s theories of performativity. Buddhism says that there is no essential identity to a self, be it as a woman, son, merchant, or other identifiers; these are all habituations from past thoughts, behaviors, and actions. Likewise, Judith Butler criticizes the “essentialism” of supposing heterosexual norms of masculinity and femininity has some internal permanence.

Mavor and Butler intersect at the crossroads of identity politics: how can one engage in self-preservation and maintain one’s identity in a society bent upon erasing it or forcing it into an expression with which it does not align? As Metaphors’ Stool reminds us, things are not what they appear to be; as theory asserts, identity is far more complex than it may seem. Images of photography in Sexist Alphabet (i.e. Cc: Cultural Appropriation and Gg: Gaze) show the power of the gaze to perpetuate racism and sexism, as well as the Foucauldian obsession with the image of the self or Other. It is often more expedient to cling to normative forms of gender and sexuality, or to allow a camera to reduce one’s self to a single image, yet more fulfilling is an acceptance and embrace of the true self that a camera cannot capture. Sexist Alphabet is, of course, not a full depiction of sexism at Andover, because the truth is that most people tend to make exceptions in their prejudiced worldviews for the people they admire, like, and love. One cannot help but imagine the shouting male student in Mm: Misogyny returning to Commons to have lunch with a close female friend who is “not like other girls,” or speaking highly of a female teacher whose class he enjoys. As both Mavor and Butler assert, therefore, all forms of self-expression, especially the camera, can only explain a single facet of the systems of oppression at work in our world; our identities, particularly in terms of gender, cannot be contained within an article of clothing or a snapshot in a photo series.

Yet, we have attempted to work with and expand on the limitations of photography in capturing reality, with especial attention to the gazes employed. When viewed in the light of Laura Mulvey’s theory of a scopophilic gaze in cinema, our series do not allow the viewer from the satisfaction of being an ‘invisible guest.’ Our series invite confrontation, physically and thematically, whereas the masculine gaze seeks passive objects to glamorize. In Sexist Alphabet’s Oo: Objectification, the subject stares directly at the camera. Aligned with bottles of shampoo, it challenges the viewer to equate her with the other objects; although the photograph does not speak, it is not silent. Without an instrument of passivity it is impossible for the female figure to be tamed into an object for visual pleasure. Furthermore, our series reject one of the exclusive tools of a masculine gaze: identification with the male object. The photographs in Metaphors are impersonal, and thus there is no intermediary gaze that compromises the viewer from seeing reality as is. Meanwhile, no sympathy with one character is expressed in Sexist Alphabets either. Through this project, we sought to explore what a feminist photography may look like, one in which images of women exist not to give pleasure but to reach beyond the silence of photography. Just as Butler says that fantasy “establishes the possible in excess of the real” (Butler 217) photography serves to legitimize what we believe to be possible - a shared understanding of the causes and faces of sexism.

Can there be a pure feminism? Relying upon the master’s tools, can we bring down the master’s house? In “Moving Beyond Pain,” renowned theorist bell hooks criticizes Beyoncé for her depiction of pain and suffering as a result of male misbehavior in Lemonade. Cannot she rely, wonders bell, upon a new language, creating new tools for the deconstruction of the patriarchy? Responding to those criticisms, a round table of modern feminists have since weighed in, saying that it is unfair to expect Beyoncé and other women of color to use their power for social justice, as few white performers are held to the same standard. Sexist Alphabet in particular explores the notion of a new language; it redefines the traditional alphabet in terms of the injustices faced by women. While the words and concepts utilized in the project are familiar to the viewer, the placement of our alphabet in a new context allows for the understanding of language as an expedient of power and ideology. As most people at Andover are introduced to social justice through informal settings such as PACE and YouTube videos, many people, although passionate about radical transformations, lack the intellectual language and theory that enriches the understanding of the work they do. Photography, as an accessible medium, establishes connections between the intellectual feminism that seeks radical transformation and a practical, mass-consumed feminism.