Making Fists

"The sexualization of women is only appealing if it’s nonconsensual. Otherwise it’s “sluttiness,”…."

Sat, 18 May 2013 17:01:23 -0600

“The sexualization of women is only appealing if it’s nonconsensual. Otherwise it’s “sluttiness,”….”

- Lindy West, “Female ‘Purity’ Is Bullshit” (via jatigi)

parisjemm: lezbatron3000: Andrea Gibson…fuck. Wifey

Sat, 18 May 2013 16:01:48 -0600

parisjemm:

lezbatron3000:

Andrea Gibson…fuck.

Wifey

tina-rose: tha-htwnbelle: Because single Black capable fathers...

Sat, 18 May 2013 15:53:39 -0600

tina-rose:

tha-htwnbelle:

Because single Black capable fathers exist too.

charliebronsons: me: reading aloud Among the 100 highest-grossing movies at the U.S. box office...

Sat, 18 May 2013 15:16:23 -0600

charliebronsons:

me: *reading aloud* Among the 100 highest-grossing movies at the U.S. box office in 2012, the study reported, 28.4% of speaking characters were female. That’s a drop from 32.8% three years ago.

brother: …i wonder if that has anything to do with a lot of movies being historically based?

me: contrary to popular belief, women in the past did talk.

Eight Months

Sat, 18 May 2013 15:10:37 -0600

I walk to work every morning day dreaming about cars and those places we used to climb out to in the desert, out past the city.

When the sky was so brilliant, blue above us, above me, stretching into outlines of eternity, ideas of infinity locked up in our veins.

Being sixteen with a cavalier is a lot more freedom then being twenty-three with a good pair of sneakers in a foreign country.

At least, it is when you probably have an untreated anxiety disorder.

To tell you the truth - I want a refund.

I wish I could take what i know now, about myself, about life, about Ireland and backtrack.

Back track to that day we ate hamburgers at midnight on a street in Cork in the rain, and replay the last six months again.

I know life doesn’t work like that.

I don’t know what I’m going to tell people.

In four months.

When I’m asking for my job back at the bar without a penny to my name. Living - carless - in my parent’s guest room.

Because you can’t tell people the truth.

That depression crept out of the winter, out of the dark, out the loneliness, out of all the stuff you tried to sweat out on the dojo floor and never succeeded - and ate months of your life, just like that. Casually. Like popcorn.

Like you weren’t someone who was living, but a host for that dark beast, who made the outside loom to large and too near and too deadly.

And I’ll have nothing to show for myself. In four months. When I’m asking for my job back.

A few days ago, a coworker asked if I was going out with friends and I had to not say “What friends?”

Instead, told the truth - “I have no friends.”

“I find that hard to believe,” he said.

How do you prove to someone that you have no friends?

I feel better now. A lot better. I mean, not everything is perfect in the garden, but fucking hell, I survived the winter and the sun is out and Dublin is beautiful and I swear, I swear, there is so much eternity in the Irish skyline. I can feel it in my bones and every time I want to write about or talk about it or quantify the way I feel - the way this place makes me feel - all my words slip away.

All my life, the people around me were out having experiences, while I holed myself up and made up experiences. You’d think with how much time I spent trying to describe things that never happened, I would be able to describe the things that actually have happened to me.

We don’t live in a world where we can talk about mental health. We don’t live in a world where I can just fucking own what happened to me, what I went through.

How you can chase a dream only to have something in your brain snap and full-on destroy months of your life, while you’re powerless to it.

It’s melting now - all that sorrow and anger and emptiness. I feel like I have to relearn how to be human again.

I really hated myself for a while there.

I was a sensei. I was a fucking bouncer.

I conquered a lot of my ever present anxiety and depression through college and I was so proud of myself, of the woman I was becoming.

It’s all gone now.

I keep thinking back to who I was, and I can’t believe we were ever even the same person.

Because that depression just came out and destroyed everything I made for myself. Destroyed all the progress and coping mechanisms I developed.

To tell you the truth - I’m so scared they’ll see it on my face when I go back.

In four months. When I crawl back to the southwest and ask for my job back. They won’t believe I’m the same woman who used to break up fights and yell at strangers in a busy nightclub.

All the while I was there - this time last year - I daydreamed about coming to Ireland. Of meeting Irish boys and listening to Irish music and drinking in Temple Bar and seeing the Irish coast.

Now I daydream about going back to the desert and getting a car and driving far out past the city limits and never letting anyone see me ever again.

ladiesofletters: Two outfits → Abaddon

Sat, 18 May 2013 12:47:30 -0600

ladiesofletters:

Two outfits → Abaddon

acousticrivers: Where have all the women gone in...

Sat, 18 May 2013 12:17:48 -0600

acousticrivers:

Where have all the women gone in movies?

Despite the success of ‘Bridesmaids’ and other female-driven movies, female representation in films is at its lowest level in five years, a USC report says.

There’s one mountain in Hollywood that even “The Hunger Games’” scrappy heroine Katniss Everdeen hasn’t been able to move: the number of roles for women.

Despite the success of recent female-driven movies such as “Bridesmaids” and the “Hunger Games” and “Twilight” series, female representation in popular movies is at its lowest level in five years, according to a study being released Monday by the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism.

Among the 100 highest-grossing movies at the U.S. box office in 2012, the study reported, 28.4% of speaking characters were female. That’s a drop from 32.8% three years ago, and a number that has stayed relatively stagnant despite increased research attention to the topic and several high-profile box-office successes starring women.

“There is notable consistency in the number of females on-screen from year to year,” said USC researcher Marc Choueiti. “The slate of films developed and produced each year is almost formulaic — in the aggregate, female representation hardly changed at all.”

When they are on-screen, 31.6% of women are shown wearing sexually revealing clothing, the highest percentage in the five years the USC researchers have been studying the issue.

For teen girls, the number who are provocatively dressed is even higher: 56.6% of teen girl characters in 2012 movies wore sexy clothes, an increase of 20% since 2009.

The USC researchers said these trends persist because those working in Hollywood believe attracting a male audience is the key ingredient to box office success.

“Industry perceptions of the audience drive much of what we see on-screen,” said study author Stacy L. Smith. “There is a perception that movies that pull male sell. Given that females go to the movies as much as males, the lack of change is likely due to entrenched ways of thinking and doing business that perpetuate the status quo.”

Female characters are more prevalent — and less likely to be sexualized — in movies written and directed by women, according to Smith.

A study USC released in January in conjunction with the Sundance Institute and Women in Film Los Angeles found that women have made more inroads in those kinds of behind-the-camera jobs in independent film and documentaries than they have in big-budget studio movies.

But it’s typically the studio movies that drive the box office — and shape audiences.

“Some depictions of females on-screen can have unintended and negative consequences for viewers,” Smith said. “Every voice deserves a chance to be heard and every story a chance to be told. At the moment … that does not seem to be the case in popular film.”

— Rebecca Keegan, Los Angeles Times

sardonicheight: [[seductively does nothing to indicate I’m attracted to you]]

Sat, 18 May 2013 12:14:20 -0600

sardonicheight:

[[seductively does nothing to indicate I’m attracted to you]]

Photo

Sat, 18 May 2013 12:09:55 -0600

My new goal is to get a coworker who is fluent in Irish to teach me a cuss word in Irish. /update...

Sat, 18 May 2013 12:01:39 -0600

My new goal is to get a coworker who is fluent in Irish to teach me a cuss word in Irish.

/update from Dublin

"Once slavery ended and whites declared that no black woman regardless of her class status or skin..."

Sat, 18 May 2013 11:59:25 -0600

“Once slavery ended and whites declared that no black woman regardless of her class status or skin color could ever be a “lady,” it was no longer socially acceptable for a white man to have a black mistress. Instead, the institutionalized devaluation of black womanhood encouraged all white men to regard black females as whores or prostitutes. Lower class white men, who had had little sexual contact with black women during slavery, were encouraged to believe they were entitled to access to the bodies of black women. In large cities their lust for black female sex objects led to the formation of numerous houses of prostitution which supplied black bodies to meet the growing demands of white men. The myth perpetuated by white that black women were possessors of a heightened sexuality encouraged white male rapists and sexual exploiters.”

- bell hooks in Ain’t I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism (via daniellemertina)

"Why is there very little utility to women’s clothing? Why don’t we get pockets which actually open?..."

Sat, 18 May 2013 11:58:08 -0600

“

Why is there very little utility to women’s clothing? Why don’t we get pockets which actually open? Why do we have to put up with the ‘false pockets’ that are frequently sewn onto women’s jackets and pants to give visual interest without ruining the ‘line’ of the garment? Why, when pockets are actually present, are they so rarely large, stable, or loose enough to accommodate a phone or a wallet? And why, given this is the case, do women go on to cop so much flack for carrying handbags around with them?

Oh wait. Is this one of those double standards which we feminists are always going on about; one of those innocuous little things which everybody just accepts because it is the norm?

Women carry handbags. It is known.

But why? I have watched my male friends get ready to go out. They slip their wallet into one pocket, their keys into another, their phone into a third pocket, and some of them even still have spare pockets large enough to carry a novel for the journey. Those of my friends who wear women’s clothes, though, face an entirely different situation. If they are wearing the right jeans or jacket, they may have up to two usable pockets (not at all guaranteed). However, in most cases they won’t have any pockets at all. Utility and style rarely meet in women’s fashion, so they grab a bag.

Contrary to all the jokes, most women don’t ‘have’ to leave the house with everything they pack in their day-to-day handbag. Most of the items in a woman’s everyday handbag are in there because, if she’s going to have to carry it anyway, she might as well make it worth her while. Excuse us for making use of the one useful item we find in our wardrobes.

”

- Kara, “The Feminist and the Handbag” (via athenasaurus)

Oh lord, don’t get me started on this. This is a little thing that highlights a big equality problem between men and women. We need the same supplies as men to do the same job. When I stocked shelves it was impossible to find pants that would hold my wallet, my box knife, my badge, my keys, my gloves (I worked dairy/frozen) and my phone. I actually ended up not carrying my wallet or keys at all. Fuck if I’m carrying a purse *ever* but that certainly wouldn’t have helped on the job.

My husband? He holds all of that plus his insulin, packets of honey in case his blood sugar drops (or a vial of glucose tablets), glucometer, headphones, markers, and pencils. With plenty of room to spare. I’ve even seen him slip paperback books into empty pockets.

When we bought sweatpants together so we could start working out? I had zero pockets. He had four. Four. When we wanted some boots for added protection working around 1.5-ton pallets and slippery surfaces, he was able to go to the nearest store and buy steel-toed, non-shock, no-slip boots in his size, no problem. I had to look online to find mine. Because women don’t work dangerous jobs. I hate shopping for clothes in general, but when it has to be online it really sucks because you never know if they will actually fit or be decent quality. Especially because, guess what, women’s sizes are far less standardized than men’s.

I’m going to guess this is all some remnant from the “women should be in the kitchen, not out in the world doing practical things” days that has held over and made it harder for us to…you know, do practical things, even nowadays. If I ever end up working a job like that again, I’ll probably just buy men’s pants and hem them for my 5-foot-tall frame, because I deserve the same supplies for my job that men do. And no, I don’t care if the men’s jeans don’t highlight the curve of my ass superbly. Do they hold up under tough conditions? Do they carry what I need carried? Practicality and efficiency only in my wardrobe, please.

(via solluxisms)

I remember watching I think it was Project Runway and the contestants had to design a new uniform for female postal workers. The one designer put utilitarian pockets on her design, and the judges yelled at her for it. They said something about it not being flattering, because you know, the key part of any uniform is not that it works for the job, but that it shows off your body in the best light possible.

(via jetpuffedmarshmallowsandsunburns)

vegansanfrancishet: So, I paint my nails pretty regularly these...

Sat, 18 May 2013 11:52:07 -0600

vegansanfrancishet:

So, I paint my nails pretty regularly these days. I also work as a barista/cashier pretty regularly these days. A few weeks back, I had a customer come in, a fairly typical, sheltered, suburban soccer mom, and she ordered a latte from me. She saw my brightly colored nails and said, “Wow, you’re so brave! My son asked me about painting his nails, and if it’s okay for boys to do that. Now I’ll tell him there’s a cool guy who does it too!” It was a nice moment, very cute.

Then, last week, she came in again, and said, “Hey, I’m so glad you’re here! I want you to meet someone!” She then brings her son forward, and says, “Okay sweetie, show him what you did!” And he throws his hands up, showing off his bright, sparkling blue nails. He shows them off, and I show mine off to him. He smiles. We fist bump.

Guys, I’ve only wanted to cry once at work before, and that was when someone ordered a large dry soy cappuccino on ice.

This time, though. This was a good cry.

searchingforknowledge: Fifteen rape victims have formed...

Fri, 17 May 2013 15:31:55 -0600

searchingforknowledge:

Fifteen rape victims have formed martial arts movement and are prepared to confront abusers if no one listens to their complaints…

A GROUP of women are fighting back against the sickening culture of rape which they say infects India. Fifteen determined females – all victims themselves – have trained in martial arts and are prepared to hand out rough justice if no one listens to their complaints. And the movement, called the Red Brigade, is growing rapidly following the gang rape and murder of medical student Jyoti Singh Pandey that horrified the world.

In a nation where a woman is reportedly raped every 20 minutes, the group’s leader Usha Vishwakarma said: “We are fighting back – and the boot is now on the other foot.” Member Sufia Hashmi, 17, said: “We’ve caught a lot of men recently. I joined because men always used to pass comments on me and touch my body but now we beat them and they run.”

Like the other members in the northern city of Lucknow, 25- year-old Usha has first-hand experience of the daily dangers women face in the huge nation – a teacher tried to rape her when she was 18. She said: “He grabbed me and tried to open my trousers. I kicked him in the crotch and ran.” Usha complained to staff but they told her to forget it and allowed her attacker to carry on teaching. She said: “Many parents tell girls to quit school so there will be no sexual violence. But we said no – this has to stop. We decided to form a group to fight for ourselves, not just complain.”MORE

mamamantis: walk up in the club like “end rape culture, unlearn sexism, question gender, fight...

Fri, 17 May 2013 12:29:37 -0600

mamamantis:

walk up in the club like “end rape culture, unlearn sexism, question gender, fight back”

chanel-smokes: ok

Fri, 17 May 2013 11:52:09 -0600

chanel-smokes:

ok

gershwinning: ACTUAL MESSAGE OF (500) DAYS OF SUMMER THAT...

Fri, 17 May 2013 10:23:47 -0600

gershwinning:

ACTUAL MESSAGE OF (500) DAYS OF SUMMER THAT NO ONE ACTUALLY REALIZES

Photo

Fri, 17 May 2013 10:20:53 -0600

gently-wafting-curtains: moonupabove: askinnyblackman: elloelen: theprettygoodgatsby: piffsburg:...

Fri, 17 May 2013 06:51:53 -0600

gently-wafting-curtains:

moonupabove:

askinnyblackman:

elloelen:

theprettygoodgatsby:

piffsburg:

Females: I want equal rights.
Females: You can’t hit me I’m a female.

Females: I want equal rights and i don’t want you to hit me because I am a human being and I don’t like being hit

Even if they throw the first punch?

how about no one hits anyone because hitting people is wrong

#god damn we learned this shit in like kindergarten

Okay so I heard someone say this the other day about women serving on the front lines of the military and I’m going to apply it here: Yes, it’s fucking obvious that the “because I’m female” is a dumb reason not to hit someone. It comes from the same assumption that makes women not being allowed on the front lines (not a problem anymore from what I hear? Is that a thing now?), which is that women are innately weaker, less physically capable. Which, duh, is bullshit.

But the thing about that is, the solution to that isn’t more women on the front lines. More people getting killed isn’t what we need. And in this analogy, more people getting the shit beat out of them isn’t what we need either (btw, since women are the majority of domestic violence victims, I think we have enough of that problem already).

I really hate when people use those things to try to discredit either one. Oh, so our entire movement for equal rights is somehow undermined by people who don’t want to get punched and use a sexist reason? Yeah, guess that means we’re not allowed to advocate for reproductive choice, or equal pay for equal work, or better rape prevention. Guess we should just go home and be happy that at least some sexist rule is preventing us from getting beaten (maybe)!

Or is it the other way around? My poor, weaker woman brain gets so mixed around sometimes. Is it that you want to be able to hit us and you don’t like the sexism getting in the way? Is that really the only thing stopping you? Well, call me hysterical and grab my fainting couch! I’ve never heard such a pathetic excuse for violence before, and I’ve read a lot of history books.

Yes, the societal expectation of not being allowed to hit back if the person hitting you is a girl is bullshit. But you know what? Nobody needs to be hitting. If they’re doing it, deal with it in the way that gets you out with least harm, I don’t care. But I’m really tired of guys acting like it’s so unfair that they can’t hit us. We’ve taken enough fucking punches.

freezepeachinspector replied to your post: freezepeachinspector replied to...

Fri, 17 May 2013 06:27:55 -0600

freezepeachinspector replied to your post: freezepeachinspector replied to your post: Guys,…

Sorry if I ruined it for you? D^:

Naw, it’s cool. You didn’t.

I’m not going to stop liking Meat Loaf (I always knew he was problematic), but I also know he’s kind of really hit or miss in his live performances.

And then I saw the video of him at the rally for Romney and he was embarrassing himself. Really. Have you seen it? The other performers (I’m not sure who they are) are actively trying to not laugh at him. I actually feel bad for everyone involved.

I also really can’t afford it. I’d have to put it on my credit card and I just don’t want to do that.

If anything, you helped me make a better financial choice.

I want to go surfing in Galway next month, so I’ll just cut my loses.

Thanks.

Making Fists

"The sexualization of women is only appealing if it’s nonconsensual. Otherwise it’s “sluttiness,”…."

parisjemm: lezbatron3000: Andrea Gibson…fuck. Wifey

tina-rose: tha-htwnbelle: Because single Black capable fathers...

charliebronsons: me: *reading aloud* Among the 100 highest-grossing movies at the U.S. box office...

Eight Months

ladiesofletters: Two outfits → Abaddon

acousticrivers: Where have all the women gone in...

sardonicheight: [[seductively does nothing to indicate I’m attracted to you]]

Photo

My new goal is to get a coworker who is fluent in Irish to teach me a cuss word in Irish. /update...

"Once slavery ended and whites declared that no black woman regardless of her class status or skin..."

"Why is there very little utility to women’s clothing? Why don’t we get pockets which actually open?..."

vegansanfrancishet: So, I paint my nails pretty regularly these...

searchingforknowledge: Fifteen rape victims have formed...

mamamantis: walk up in the club like “end rape culture, unlearn sexism, question gender, fight...

chanel-smokes: ok

gershwinning: ACTUAL MESSAGE OF (500) DAYS OF SUMMER THAT...

Photo

gently-wafting-curtains: moonupabove: askinnyblackman: elloelen: theprettygoodgatsby: piffsburg:...

freezepeachinspector replied to your post: freezepeachinspector replied to...

charliebronsons: me: reading aloud Among the 100 highest-grossing movies at the U.S. box office...