#women's voices
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girltalkcollectives · 2 months ago
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The Barbie Scene That Had Us All Ugly Crying in the Theater (You Know the One)
I wasn’t prepared to have an existential crisis about womanhood while eating overpriced movie theater popcorn, but there I was, mascara running down my face, as America Ferrera started that speech in Barbie.
You know exactly which one I’m talking about.
“It is literally impossible to be a woman.”
And just like that, I felt seen in a way that hit differently than any feminist text or empowerment speech ever had. Because here was this regular mom, in a movie about a plastic doll, putting into words everything I’ve felt but couldn’t explain since I was old enough to understand what being a woman meant.
I glanced around the theater, and I swear you could feel it — this collective moment of recognition from every woman in the room. Like we were all simultaneously remembering every time we’d been too much and not enough, all at once.
The thing is, I didn’t walk into that theater expecting to confront every contradiction I’ve ever lived through. I was just there for the pink aesthetics and Margot Robbie’s outfits. But then Gloria started talking about how we’re supposed to be extraordinary but somehow always doing it wrong, and suddenly I was thinking about every time I’d dimmed my own light to make others comfortable.
“Always stand out and always be grateful.”
I felt that line in my soul. I remember a time last year when I got a 100 on a final exam for one of my college classes. I literally prefaced telling my friends with “It’s not really a big deal, but…” Why? Because I’d rather downplay my success than risk being seen as boastful.
The part about never admitting we’re doing any of it unless we want to be called difficult? I actually snorted in the theater (sorry to the people behind me). Because right before I went to see that movie, my roommate called me “high maintenance” for having basic boundaries about cleaning schedules. The bar is literally in hell.
Sitting there, watching this scene, I thought about every woman in my life who’s lived this impossible paradox. My mom, who was told she was ��too aggressive” for asking for a raise after 15 years at her company. My best friend, who got called “difficult” for turning down a guy who wouldn’t take no for an answer. Me, being told I’m “too sensitive” for calling out sexist jokes while also being told “too cold” for not laughing at them.
You want to know the most ironic part? Some critics called this speech “too on the nose” or “heavy-handed.” And isn’t that exactly what Gloria was talking about? Even when we perfectly articulate the impossible standards we face, we get criticized for how we articulate them.
I left that theater feeling different. Not because anything had changed, really, but because finally, someone had named this thing we’ve all been feeling. In a summer blockbuster. In hot pink. In a movie about a literal plastic doll.
Sometimes I rewatch that scene on Tiktok when I need to remember I’m not crazy for feeling overwhelmed by these contradictions. When I need to remember that every woman I know is doing this impossible dance of being everything and nothing all at once.
To the woman who sat next to me in the theater and offered me a tissue during that scene without saying a word — thank you. To America Ferrera for delivering those lines like she was reading from my diary — thank you. To Greta Gerwig for sneaking this truth bomb into a movie about Barbie — thank you.
And to every woman reading this who’s ever felt like she’s failing at being a woman because the requirements are impossible — you're not alone. We’re all just trying to navigate this pink paradox together.
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vifetoile · 9 months ago
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Because this generation is serving as the midwife for the rebirth of the Shechinah, we will have to be familiar with the ancient knowledge and traditional prayers which invoke her, at the same time that we are creating new forms. In this ancient/future subculture we will need poets and prophets, rebels and rabbis, musicians and mothers.
What is clear is that we have the beginnings of a movement without a hierarchy, a central leader, or a single organization.
This Goddess who shines on us as we study sacred texts is found in redwood groves and apple orchards. She is coming to us in the wind and the water, in the ocean and the mountains. Like the underground Goddess herself, this movement comes from the subterranean parts of the human psyche. It emerges from a place of discovery and awe, from a place of wonder and worship.
Rabbi Léah Novik, collected from The Goddess Re-Awakening collection by Shirley Nicholson
Note that "Shechinah" means, literally, "the presence of God" and it is a multifaceted concept in the Talmud, in Midrash, and in the Mishnah. Rabbi Novik's points are, I think, applicable to a lot of Goddess-oriented activities, but the words "Shechinah" and "Goddess" are not interchangeable.
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cunning-pope · 8 months ago
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When Judy Grahn wrote of the Greek poet Sappho she suggested that she was not the first woman poet in Western civilization, not a solitary female voice rising out of an otherwise barren plain. On the contrary, Grahn said, hers was the surviving voice, the last voice in a long line of women poets and artists. Sappho's works [are] so badly fragmented because they were systematically destroyed.
Grahn wrote: “And what was the nature of Sappho's wealth? She praised it often enough: love, beauty, grace, flowers, appropriate behavior to the gods, lovely clothing, intelligence, tenderness. Her poems are filled with the color purple, the color gold, the sun, flowers, especially the violet and the rose, and altars, deer, groves of trees, and the stories of the gods. Love, she said, is a tale-weaver. Wealthy? We own no kind of money that would buy us Sappho's wealth. In her world, women were central to themselves; they had to have been to write as she did. She lived on an island of women, in a company of women, from which she addressed all creation. And oh, how they listened.”
Bettina Aptheker, 1989
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atheismvids · 4 months ago
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"I am, and always will be, an unapologetic black atheist."
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crazycatsiren · 2 years ago
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In my opinion, one thing to not lose sight of is that women's issues can still be women's issues.
Yes, not all women go through them because not all women are AFAB. Yes, not only women are affected by them because there are those who are AFAB and aren't/don't identify as women.
That doesn't mean they aren't women's issues. And women who do deal with them should be allowed to talk about them as women's issues.
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field-cryptobotanist · 8 months ago
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Women with deep low voices this. Women with raspy voices that.
We all already know that's hot!
Where's the love for women with high pitched bubbly voices that say the most cryptic, ominous and unsettling things with childlike glee?
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scrumptiouswordsthings · 1 year ago
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Mass Hysteria & Dark Academia Connections
Hysteria & Women have a long and tense relationship (not going to dive deep here - if you just type those words into a search engine you will see *so many* results). However, there's plenty of interesting commentary on the power behind or because of mass hsyteria.
The Salem Witch trials are a popular proving ground for this in American media. The Crucible by Arthur Miller is the tip of the iceberg here. I want to point out two recent works of media that home in on the intersection of mass hysteria and the academia - specifically high school girls and who gets believes/who gets to speak up in the public arena.
Conversion by Katherine Howe is a 2015 dark academia YA novel with a dual narrative. One takes place in a 21st century intense all-girls college prep school, St Joans while the other takes the same story from Miller's The Crucible and alters the narrative perspective. These two narratives weave back and forth on each other with the main narrator in the 21st century even reading and analyzing The Crucible to form her own conclusions on what is going on with the girls at her school. Howe was inspired to write the novel when 16 girls in nearby LeRoy, NY all ended up experiencing a slew of similar physical symptoms. The book takes a deep look at what controls the lives of young women and what power these girls hold over their own lives and voices in both the modern day and earlier in American history. I can't say it is a favorite book of mine, but what Howe has done is fascinating! If you have any interest in public perception of hysteria I'd adore hearing what you think of the book.
Now onto the film - The Falling is a 2014 British mystery film starring Maisie Williams (oh, and introducing Florence Pugh so it looks a little star-studded in retrospect). It is an unsettling film that is, similarly to the 21st century timeline of Conversion, set at an all-girls school. It follows two best friends, a growing obsession, and power and control regarding sexuality. Then death and mysterious fainting spells increase resulting in psychiatric wards and the shutdown of the school. Sex, power, death, friendship, and yes, hysteria, all feature on screen here.
Together it is fascinating to lump together and connect the thread (and the mental thought is perhaps stirred as I also just read Mary Beard's Women & Power about who gets to speak in the works of the classical Western literary canon) of The Crucible by Arthur Miller, Conversion by Katherine Howe, and The Falling directed by Carol Morley. Perception, belief, hysteria, and female power concoct some fascinating discussion about voices in today's world.
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countessravengrey · 1 year ago
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Hell yes
#2 a reminder to trans femmes
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prochoice-hall-of-fame · 3 months ago
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Women don't regret abortions and if you disagree you deserve to be shamed :)
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thebellaedit · 3 months ago
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"I love the rebellious spirit Virago was born out of. The women who founded Virago – an entirely women-led business – recognised that women’s voices were not being heard and took action, despite industry criticism, to change that. It showed the industry that there was a hungry and passionate readership for voices from the margins – in the 80s, Virago was the only British publisher to take a chance on Dr Maya Angelou and we’d be much the poorer had they not."
Celeste Ward-Best quoted in The Flip newsletter 'Female Leadership in Publishing interviews' on 21 March 2024
(If you use my link, I may earn a commission from Bookshop.org whose fees support independent bookshops.)
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womenindiplomacyday · 3 months ago
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Platform of Women Leaders.
The meeting of women Heads of State and Government is convened during the High-Level week of the UN General Assembly each September to discuss priority issues on the international community's agenda and to identify solutions to today's complex and interlinked challenges. The meeting benefits from the presence of women world leaders in New York and amplifies their voices during the high-level week.
Platform of Women Leaders.
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girltalkcollectives · 2 months ago
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What Growing Up as a Girl Really Looks Like (And What I Wish Someone Had Told Me)
I was digging through old diaries the other day (dangerous, I know), and found an entry from when I was 12. I’d written: “I wish I was a boy. Everything seems easier for them.”
And honestly? That hit me hard. Because at 20 now, I understand exactly why my 12-year-old self felt that way. But I also understand something she didn’t — that being a girl, despite everything society throws at us, is actually kind of magical.
Growing up as a girl is complicated. It’s learning to walk the impossible tightrope of “be pretty but not too pretty,” “be smart but not too smart,” “be confident but not intimidating.” It’s being told to “sit like a lady” while watching boys sprawl across their chairs without comment.
I remember the first time I realized being a girl meant being careful. I was 13, walking home from school, when a car full of grown men honked at me. I was wearing my school uniform. Let that sink in.
The unwritten rulebooks started filling up from there: Don’t walk alone at night. Hold your keys like a weapon. Check your backseat. Send your location to friends. Text them when you get home. Smile, but not too much. Be nice, but not too friendly. Exist, but not too loudly.
But here’s what growing up as a girl also means:
It’s the unspoken solidarity when another girl hands you a tampon in the bathroom without you even having to ask. It’s code words with your friends to rescue each other from uncomfortable situations. It’s the way we can communicate entire conversations just through eye contact across a room.
Being a girl means having friendships so deep that no rom-com love story could ever compare. It’s late-night talks that heal your soul. It’s friends who will hype you up in Instagram comments and then cry with you through breakups. It’s the kind of love that society tries to convince us only exists in romantic relationships, but we know better.
I’ve learned that being a girl is strength that doesn’t look like what they told us strength should be. It’s getting back up every time the world tries to tell you you’re too much or not enough. It’s finding your voice even when they try to silence it. It’s taking up space even when they try to shrink you.
We learn early that our bodies are somehow both temples and battlegrounds. We’re simultaneously told to love ourselves but also to constantly improve. Buy this cream, try this diet, wear this, but don’t wear that. It’s exhausting.
But we also learn the power of reclaiming ourselves. Of looking in the mirror and deciding that we are enough, exactly as we are. Of understanding that our worth isn’t in our waist size or our relationship status or our ability to please others.
Being a girl means carrying generations of “despite” in our DNA. Despite the fear, we walk tall. Despite the judgment, we speak up. Despite the limitations, we soar. Despite everything, we rise.
To my 12-year-old self who wished she was a boy: I get it. I really do. But what you didn’t know then is that being a girl isn’t the weakness they tried to convince us it was. It’s a superpower.
Being a girl means being part of the most resilient, supportive, powerful tribe there is. It’s sharing lip gloss and secrets and strength. It’s building each other up when the world tries to tear us down. It’s turning “despite” into “because.”
Because we are girls, we are strong.
Because we are girls, we are resilient.
Because we are girls, we are powerful.
So yes, sometimes being a girl means being careful. Being afraid. Being judged. But it also means being fierce, being loving, being unstoppable.
And honestly? I wouldn’t have it any other way.
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vifetoile · 1 month ago
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Scarecrow
I'm liking the name, Scarecrow, and the way my spine roots me to the earth; some of me Tree, nailed to its DNA the old spade of my arms, shoulders; my first thought the last straw as rain christens me. I am girl, maybe boy, under this stuffed shirt, this stove-pipe hat; field poet, dirt-poor, solo.
But I scare them, martyred between cloud and soil, aye, they keep their distance; and my verse moves from the wormy draft at my root, by way of the wren-heart coy in my suit, to thunder, verb, lightning, noun, the lit-up image of a fleeing hare. Wild planet.
I compose this whole whirled world and I am it.
Scarecrow, by Carol Ann Duffy
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cunning-pope · 2 months ago
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Deleting male authors from my Goodreads TBR list. Even Garth Nix, whom I love. Toodle-oo Paul Tillich and Adrian Tchaikovsky. Stephen King, I've read plenty of you, goodbye.
The one exception is Kurt Vonnegut, but once I get Cat's Cradle in from the library, my TBR will be a Y-Chromosome free space.
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atheismvids · 5 months ago
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Video description:
In this episode, I dive into the process of deconstructing from conservative Christian ideologies. Join me as I ask seven essential questions to re-examine your faith and encourage introspection. Explore the foundations of your beliefs, challenge notions about God's character, and navigate the complexities of morality and intellectual integrity. As we delve into these crucial topics, I aim to promote personal growth, authenticity, and a deeper understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
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