We need more women like this
My reblog was pretty aggressive on this one
important
True gender equality is actually perceived as inequality. A group that is made up of 50% women is perceived as being mostly women. A situation that is perfectly equal between men and women is perceived as being biased in favor of women.
And if you don’t believe me, you’ve never been a married woman who kept her family name. I have had students hold that up as proof of my “sexism.”
My own brother told me that he could never marry a woman who kept her name because “everyone would know who ruled that relationship.” Perfect equality – my husband keeps his name and I keep mine – is held as a statement of superiority on my part.
Lucy, When Worlds Collide: Fandom and Male Privilege
This is so ridiculously important.
(via marthajefferson)
rosethomass:
if you, like me, get so angry when discussing or debating current issues with ignorant/bigoted people that you can’t articulate your thoughts, here is a list of arguments i’ve seen so far defending darren wilson or going against the ferguson protests, with suggestions as to how to counter and links to helpful posts to support your argument:
1. “It’s not a race issue!”
- Actual KKK waving a Confederate flag as they walk the streets of Ferguson, celebrating.
- Darren Wilson might even be affiliated with the KKK
- White Man waves a gun at children in a park, is taken into custody alive
- More examples of double standards in favor of white people: James Eagan Holmes, various other (unnamed but fairly well-known) cases
2. “The officer feared for his life. It was self defense.”
- Pictures of Darren Wilson’s oh-so-life-threatening injuries + full-body shot
- Darren Wilson says he would do it again
- Darren Wilson is 6’4” and 215lbs (needs source), in a vehicle with a loaded weapon. Mike Brown was an unarmed teenager walking down the street.
- (Speculative) He got married while on leave, possibly so his wife wouldn’t have to testify if she knew something.
- Wilson did not complete an incident report, which is a violation of protocol
- Article about why Darren Wilson shooting Mike Brown was illegal no matter how you look at it
3. “Michael Brown stole from a convenience store. He was a thug and a thief.”
- Statement from the store owner saying that no one called the police and nothing was taken
- This is disputable and the time stamps on the video don’t sync up with the story.
- The cigarettes he allegedly stole were paid for and there’s proof
- Remind them that even if Mike Brown had done some petty shoplifting, that’s no reason for him to be shot six times in the middle of a street.
4. “The jury saw all the evidence, they know better.”/Something about insufficient/unreliable evidence.
- “It’s Incredibly Rare For A Grand Jury To Do What Ferguson’s Just Did” + only .0004% of grand juries fail to indict
- All 4 eyewitness accounts of the murder in chronological order
- Every piece of evidence in the case against officer wilson
- Prosecutor supported Wilson, and other problems with the case
- Remind them that even “people get charged with manslaughter when someone dies in a car accident” and Darren Wilson wasn’t even charged that
- The National Bar Association and its president know the jury’s decision was bullshit
5. “The riots and protests are out of hand and unnecessary. It’s just an excuse to be violent and steal things.”
- Video of protesters getting shot with (I think) flare bombs and tear gas by police. (warning: flashing lights and loud sounds)
- Video of protesters quietly sitting down
- Video of protesters peacefully but firmly chanting outside the supreme court
- Video of the National Guard arriving with automatic weapons
- Crips and Blood gang members preventing looters at the riots (from the first riots back in august)
- Community working together to clean up the aftermath of the riots
6. “You can’t fight violence with violence, what would Martin Luther King say?”
- “It is not enough for me to stand before you tonight and condemn riots…..” -MLK
- Remind them that as pro-peaceful protests as MLK was, he still got shot in the head.
If after all this, they’re still arguing in defense of Darren Wilson or the jury, just give up because there’s no way you can change the mind of such a complete fucking bigot.
Some masterposts I used that also have more information: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
If there’s anything I should add or fix, please let me know
When trans women are mocked and made into jokes in the media, I get very upset, and I am often told “Kay, you can’t go through life getting offended every time someone makes a joke.” And I sputter and object but they don’t hear me. So I want to be clear for once, about why the jokes make me angry.
I learned to hate myself for being transgender before I knew I was transgender. I laughed at the jokes in stand up comedy routines, and prime time sitcoms, and animated comedy shows, and in the movies, and in books, and in games, laughing at trans women for existing, about “men in dresses”, about people who “got their dicks chopped off”, and I learned to think that was worthy of ridicule.
And then a day came when I felt a pang of envy at what my female classmates were wearing and I repressed it, and felt guilty, and a day where I felt incomplete because I had no breasts and I repressed it and I felt disgusting
And a day when I realized the only images of romance that made me feel anything showed two women together and I repressed it and I felt like a monster
And a day when I realized I felt sick when I looked at myself in the mirror after every shower before work and couldn’t bear to look at my own face, and I hated myself.
And then there came a day when I hated myself so much, and I thought I could never understand why, and so I just wanted it all to end. And it was just a miracle that I swerved my car back into my lane in time.And all of it started with a joke that I heard on TV, and then kept hearing from all the voices from the ether, over and over and over, worming an idea into my mind before I was old enough to realize I was absorbing it, the idea that a man in a dress is funny, and that changing your body parts makes you a freak, and that women who have penises instead of vaginas are liars and hurt men. And they’re still making these jokes. And somewhere out there right now, just like all those years ago, there is a little girl in a t-shirt and cargo shorts with buzzed off hair watching the TV, hearing that joke and absorbing it without knowing it, who will someday have to pry herself apart to tear it out of her head, just like I did.
That is, if she doesn’t kill herself first.
I know this is a really heavy post but if you read it and you appreciated it, I’d appreciate it in return if you reblogged it. This is really important to me and I want people to read it and understand it. Thank you.
(x)
Some light in the darkness that is Gaming news right now
gaming is SO IMPORTANT for so many disabled people (myself included). There’s not many hobbies that have the range of interactivity and engagement that gaming has, while still being something someone can do with little movement or motor control.
I’ve met a few people who were very disapproving of my gaming hobby (was literally told to “go read a book” in a snooty way by one of them) and it frustrates heck out of me that they can’t see how important and fun gaming can be. Gaming isn’t passive like a lot of other hobbies recommended for disabled folks. Gaming is something to get pumped about and something that you can get better at! You can improve your gaming skills and feel accomplished!
if it weren’t for video games I would be a much, much more unhappy and unfulfilled person.
This is why its SO important to make gaming accessible to disabled people.
This new ‘trend’ of strobing when hit [Destiny/Assassins’ Creed to name a few] is very detrimental to anyone with a seizure disorder that is effected by strobing. A lot of people with motor disorders often have visual disorders too.
Developers really need to make flashy visual effects optional or toggled on/off in menus; not left as a fixed point.
Gaming is SO important to help with my motor skills and comprehension skills and making it inaccessible to some audiences is really detrimental.
^^^Really important commentary
(Source: sizvideos)
“By now most members of the Comic-Con and cosplay community are likely aware that early Sunday morning a female cosplayer was found unconscious at the 333 West Harbor Drive Marriott Marquis and Marina hotel. It was the girl’s first visit to Con, and her seventeenth birthday. We spoke to a Harbor Police Sergeant who asks that anyone with information reach out by e-mailing sdhpiwatch@portofsandiego.org.”—
What We Know About The Comic-Con Cosplay Assault, And How To Help | The Mary Sue (via themarysue)
“I can’t accept that. I can’t accept that there was only one black woman in the entire film, who delivered one line and who we never saw again. I can’t accept that the bad guys were Asian and that although in China, Lucy’s roommate says, “I mean, who speaks Chinese? I don’t speak Chinese!” I can’t accept that in Hercules, which I also saw this weekend, there were no people of color except for Dwayne Johnson himself and his mixed-race wife, whose skin was almost alabaster. I can’t accept that she got maybe two lines and was then murdered. I can’t accept that the “primitive tribe” in Hercules consisted of dark-haired men painted heavily, blackish green, to give their skin (head-to-toe) a darker appearance, so the audience could easily differentiate between good and bad guys by the white vs. dark skin. I can’t accept that during the previews, Exodus: Gods and Kings, a story about Moses leading the Israelite slaves out of Egypt, where not a single person of color is represented, casts Sigourney Weaver and Joel Edgerton to play Egyptians. I can’t accept that in the preview for Kingsman: The Secret Service, which takes place in London, features a cast of white boys and not a single person of Indian descent, which make up the largest non-white ethnic group in London. I can’t accept that in stories about the end of the world and the apocalypse, that somehow only white people survive. I can’t accept that while my daily life is filled with black and brown women, they are completely absent, erased, when I look at a TV or movie screen.”—Olivia Cole – Lucy: Why I’m Tired of Seeing White People on the Big Screen (via whatwhiteswillneverknow)
i’m really emotional about grantaire and the fact that his single best quality was that he loved, and the most obvious love in him was pretty obviously queer, and that love drives him to be a very symbol of love.
like, how often do we get that? esp considering the fact that the musical has that axiom “to love another person is to see the face of god” and grantaire’s love isn’t treated as being any different or other from the rest of the loves in this story.
like, love fucking renders grantaire holy.
how often do we get to be holy?