when you break a world record, but a man comes in second (x)
And it’s worth note that Ledecky didn’t just win the 800 freestyle- she obliterated it:
Thats her. And those specks in the distance are her competitors. The second place swimmer was 11 SECONDS behind her. 11 seconds is FOREVER in something like this. Most second place swimmers in most races finish fractions of a second behind the first place swimmer.
Her finishing with none of her competitors in sight. And that yellow line is the previous world record’s pace. Ledecky is more than a full body length ahead.
Which, btw, she did in the 400m freestyle earlier in the games. Seen here:
(The previous world record in this race was held by her, to begin with, btw. As well as the 3 world record times preceding that one.)
So to sum it up: Yeah, Phelps is one of the most decorated Olympic swimmers ever etc etc but him getting silver means jack in the face of the actual-human-avatar-of-Poseidon that is Katie Ledecky.
There’s this new TV show, Jamestown, about women who were shipped to America to marry the new colonists in 1619. Guardian critic Mark Lawson complained it was somehow ~unrealistic to depict 17th century women having “modern” thoughts like… objecting to rape? And making jokes?
This is so stupid, sexist, and shortsighted, FOR A NUMBER OF REASONS:
I think men like the Mythical Misogynistic Past for a couple of reasons. First, it lets them off the hook for present-day misogyny, because nothing in the present is ever quite as bad as the Mythical Misogynistic Past and so stop your complaining, woman (some tack on racism and Islamophobia and use the Mythical Misogynistic Middle East as their scapegoat instead: notice the use of terms like “backwards” or “medieval”).
Second, it gives them a sort of fantasy land where they’re important and powerful, and never have to compromise with or respect women, and can do whatever they want, whenever they want. Or, if they don’t take advantage of this unbridled power, then they’re a very special person who’s much nicer than everyone else, instead of someone practicing basic decency. Because in the Mythical Misogynistic Past it’s not basic decency, that’s going above and beyond!
And third, I find in a lot of male supremacist circles there’s this idea that feminism is an unnatural modern invention, imposed artificially on society (usually by some sort of shadowy female cabal). And even men who are just run-of-the-mill sexist might have inklings of that: that feminism this new thing that no one ever thought of before, and the natural state of humanity is men having absolute power over women. That’s why they’re so insistent on “historical accuracy,” not just in this but in stuff like not having any black people in period dramas – it’s not just how they think it was (it wasn’t), but how they think it’s supposed to be.
Open a bank account or get a credit card without signed permission from her father or hr husband.
Serve on a jury – because it might inconvenience the family not to have the woman at home being her husband’s helpmate.
Obtain any form of birth control without her husband’s permission. You had to be married, and your hub and had to agree to postpone having children.
Get an Ivy League education.
Ivy League schools were men’s colleges ntil the 70′s and 80′s. When
they opened their doors to women it was agree that women went there for
their MRS. Degee.
Experience equality in the workplace: Kennedy’s
Commission on the Status of Women produced a report in 1963 that
revealed, among other things, that women earned 59 cents for every
dollar that men earned and were kept out of the more lucrative
professional positions.
Keep her job if she was pregnant.Until the Pregnancy Discrimination Act in 1978, women were regularly fired from their workplace for being pregnant.
Refuse to have sex with her husband.The mid 70s saw most states recognize marital rape and in 1993 it became criminalized
in all 50 states. Nevertheless, marital rape is still often treated
differently to other forms of rape in some states even today.
Get a divorce with some degree of ease.Before the No Fault Divorce
law in 1969, spouses had to show the faults of the other party, such as
adultery, and could easily be overturned by recrimination.
Have a legal abortion in most states.The Roe v. Wade case in 1973 protected a woman’s right to abortion until viability.
Take legal action against workplace sexual harassment.
Play college sports
Title IX of the Education
Amendments of protects people from discrimination based
on sex in education programs or activities that receive Federal
financial assistance
It was nt until this statute that colleges had teams for women’s sports
Apply for men’s Jobs
The EEOC rules that
sex-segregated help wanted ads in newspapers are illegal. This ruling
is upheld in 1973 by the Supreme Court, opening the way for women to
apply for higher-paying jobs hitherto open only to men.
This is why we needed feminism – this is why we know that feminism works
I just want to reiterate this stuff, because I legit get the feeling there are a lot of younger women for whom it hasn’t really sunk in what it is today’s GOP is actively trying to return to.
Did you go to a good college? Shame on you, you took a college placement that could have gone to a man who deserves and needs it to support or prepare for his wife & children. But if you really must attend college, well, some men like that, you can still get married if you focus on finding the right man.
Got a job? Why? A man could be doing that job. You should be at home caring for a family. You shouldn’t be taking that job away from a man who needs it (see college, above). You definitely don’t have a career – you’ll be pregnant and raising children soon, so no need to worry about promoting you.
This shit was within living memory.
I’M A MILLENIAL and my mother was in the second class that allowed women at an Ivy League school.
Men who are alive today either personally remember shit like this or have parents/family who have raised them into thinking this was the way America functioned back in the blissful Good Old Days. There are literally dudes in the GOP old enough to remember when it was like this and yearn for those days to return.
When people talk about resisting conservativism and the GOP, we’re not just talking about whether the wage gap is a myth or not. We’re talking about whether women even have the fundamental right to exist as individuals, to run their own households and compete for jobs and be considered on an equal footing with men in any arena at all in the first place.
I was a child in the 1960s, a teenager in the 1970s, a young adult in the 1980s. This is what it was like:
When I was growing up, it was considered unfortunate if a girl was good at sports. Girls were not allowed in Little League. Girls’ teams didn’t exist in high school, except at all-girls’ high schools. Boys played sports, and girls were the cheerleaders.
People used to ask me as a child what I wanted to be when I grew up. I said I wanted to be a brain surgeon or the first woman justice on the Supreme Court. Everyone told me it was impossible–those just weren’t realistic goals for a girl–the latter, especially, because you couldn’t trust women to judge fairly and rationally, after all.
In the 1960s and 1970s, all women were identified by their marital status, even in arrest reports and obituaries. In elementary school, my science teacher referred to Pierre Curie as DOCTOR Curie and Marie Curie as MRS. Curie…because, as he put it, “she was just his wife.” (Both had doctorates and both were Nobel prize winners, so you would think that both would be accorded respect.)
Companies could and did require women to wear dresses and skirts. Failure to do could and did get women fired. And it was legal. It was also legal to fire women for getting married or getting pregnant. The rationale was that a woman who was married or who had a child had no business working; that was what her husband was for. Aetna Insurance, the biggest insurance company in America, fired women for all of the above.
A man could rape his wife. Legally. I can remember being twelve years old and reading about legal experts actually debating whether or not a man could actually be said to coerce his wife into having sex. This was a serious debate in 1974.
The debate about marital rape came up in my law school, too, in 1984. Could a woman be raped by her husband? The guys all said no–a woman got married, so she was consenting to sex at all times. So I turned it around. I asked them if, since a man had gotten married, that meant that his wife could shove a dildo or a stick or something up his ass any time she wanted to for HER sexual pleasure.
(Hey, I thought it was reasonable. If one gender was legally entitled to force sex on the other, then obviously the reverse should also be true.)
The male law students didn’t like the idea. Interestingly, they commented that being treated like that would make them feel like a woman.
My reaction was, “Thank you for proving my point…”
The concept of date rape, when first proposed, was considered laughable. If a woman went out on a date, the argument of legal experts ran, sexual consent was implied. Even more sickening was the fact that in some states–even in the early 1980s–a man could rape his daughter…and it was no worse than a misdemeanor.
Women taking self-defense classes in the 1970s and 1980s were frequently described in books and on TV as “cute.” The implication was that it was absurd for a woman to attempt to defend herself, but wasn’t it just adorable for her to try?
I was expressly forbidden to take computer classes in junior and senior years of high school–1978-79 and 1979-80–because, as the principal told me, “Only boys have to know that kind of thing. You girls are going to get married, and you won’t use it.”
When I was in college–from 1980 to 1984–there were no womens’ studies. The idea hadn’t occurred in many places because the presumption was that there was nothing TO study. My history professor–a man who had a doctorate in history–informed me quite seriously that women had never produced a noted painter, sculptor, composer, architect or scientist because…wait for it…womens’ brains were too small.
(He was very surprised when I came up with a list of fifty women gifted in the arts and science, most of whom he had never heard of before.)
When Walter Mondale picked Geraldine Ferraro as a running mate in 1984, the press hailed it as a disaster. What would happen, they asked fearfully, if Mondale died and Ferraro became president? What if an international crisis arose and she was menstruating? She could push the nuclear button in a fit of PMS! It would be the end of the WORLD!!
…No, they WEREN’T kidding.
On the surface, things are very different now than they were when I was a child, a teen and a young adult. But I’m afraid that people now do not realize what it was like then. I’ve read a lot of posts from young women who say that they are not feminists. If the only exposure to feminism they have is the work of extremists, I cannot blame them overmuch.
I wish that I could tell them what feminism was like when it was new–when the dream of legal equality was just a dream, and hadn’t even begun to come true. When “woman’s work” was a sneer–and an overt putdown. When people tut-tutted over bright and athletic girls with the words, “Really, it’s a shame she’s not a boy.” That lack of feminism wasn’t all men opening doors and picking up checks. A lot of it was an attitude of patronizing contempt that hasn’t entirely died out, but which has become less publicly acceptable.
I wish I could make them feel what it was like…when grown men were called “men” and grown women were “girls.”
Know your history.
So this, too, is what they mean saying “make America great again” and/or the good old days.
Emma Stone may be lauded as one of Hollywood’s most in-demand actresses, but she says her ideas have yet to be taken seriously. In a recent profile with Rolling Stone, the 28-year-old actress discussed her path to stardom, including her experiences as a woman in the entertainment industry.
I’ve heard about shit like this happening to women FAR less famous than Emma Stone, so good for her for speaking up. It’s fucking gross, and it contributes to the incredibly boring “women aren’t funny narrative” – which is put forth by guys who are definitely not funny.
After a pretty brutal week, Hillary Clinton gave an incredible speech at a Children’s Defense Fund ceremony that honored her lifelong child advocacy work.
She spoke about the inspiration she draws from her own mother (who overcame an abusive childhood) and the belief that we all need to work to make sure every child has an advocate. She spoke about the work that was done to expand Medicaid to cover more pregnant women and children, about criminal justice reform, about making schools more accessible to children with disabilities, about the children of immigrants who fear deportation, about making sure poor children receive the same shot as anyone else.
While male sports reporters are typically judged by their commentary and analysis, women in the same industry face far more superficial and sexist scrutiny. It can feel especially bad when seemingly “feminist” publications turn their back.
Jackie Mitchell…a bad ass lady I had never heard of.
From her Wikipedia page: “Seventeen-year-old Jackie Mitchell, brought in to pitch in the first inning after the starting pitcher had given up a double and a single, faced Babe Ruth. After taking a ball, Ruth swung and missed at the next two pitches. Mitchell’s fourth pitch to Ruth was a called third strike. Babe Ruth glared and verbally abused the umpire before being led away by his teammates to sit to wait for another batting turn. The crowd roared for Jackie. Babe Ruth was quoted in a Chattanooga newspaper as having said:
“I don’t know what’s going to happen if they begin to let women in baseball. Of course, they will never make good. Why? Because they are too delicate. It would kill them to play ball every day.”
Next up was the Iron Horse Lou Gehrig, who swung through the first three pitches to strike out. Jackie Mitchell became famous for striking out two of the greatest baseball players in history.
A few days after Mitchell struck out Ruth and Gehrig, baseball commissionerKenesaw Mountain Landis voided her contract and declared women unfit to play baseball as the game was “too strenuous.”[5][10] Mitchell continued to play professionally,barnstorming with the House of David, a men’s team famous for their very long hair and long beards.[11] While travelling with the House of David team, she would sometimes wear a fake beard for publicity.”
TL;DR: teenage girl strikes out two of the greatest baseball players ever, teenage girl gets her contract voided, teenage girl plays baseball wearing fake beard
These guys were so fucking injured by a teenage girl’s awesomeness that they literally threw a hissyfit and hung up a sign that said “NO GIRLS.”
They gave up.
They couldn’t handle it.
Losers.
Teenage girls are amazing.
Here’s a friendly reminder of why the big leagues of sports aren’t co-ed.
It’s not to “make it fair” on women. It’s because men are scared of being beaten by women.
The thing about Tumblr that probably makes me saddest is the underlying assumption that women past a certain age (which seems to be about 25?) stop having any sort of outside interests beyond family/career/kids. Like, y’all are always so shocked that grown women have lives and can fangirl as hard as we did as teenagers.
It makes me sad not because it makes me feel old (although it does), but because these younger women are constricting their own lives–they fully expect that this will happen to them someday. Y’all deserve better. Y’all deserve to EXPECT better.
And worse than that, the idea that there’s something WRONG with a grown woman who has other interests.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
One of the biggest things I realized growing up?
It doesn’t happen.
You expect somehow you will change when you are finally An Adult ™. You’ll stop enjoying the things you enjoy now for something more “adult” or “mature”. You’ll FEEL like an adult and not like a child anymore. You’ll feel comfortable and secure and not scared and unsure and confused. You expect you will feel like you have your shit together.
But I can tell you that it doesn’t happen. You’ll still feel like the “you” you were at 15 or 17 or 19.
You just have these…things to deal with. Like rent. And insurance.
You have a job either because a) you like it or b) it keeps the lights and internet on.
You’ll look up from fangirling one day and realize ‘shit. I am twenty eight years old. That’s almost 30!’. Or maybe it will be that you look down at the small child clasped around your legs and realize ‘that is my child. I have a child. A human being child.’ Or maybe it will be that you have to negotiate your budget around con tickets AND a mortgage payment.
Growing up isn’t a thing that happens.
It’s a realization that it doesn’t happen.
Holy shit, y’all. There are some AMAZING responses to this post. Yes, everything alwayshometomarvel says. All that.
Feeling like I wasn’t ‘adult’ enough fucked me up for years. I would cry at night and feel like a total piece of shit because I was married with a kid, and yet I still did ‘not adult’ things–I played MMOs, I cosplayed and went to conventions, I drew fan art and wrote fan fic. I kept waiting for the day that I would wake up and realize that what I really needed to be doing was the laundry, cleaning the house, making dinner every night, etc. Basically, be the ‘perfect’ wife and mother.
And somewhere between then and now, I somehow managed to tell myself…fuck it. I AM an adult. I go to work every day and pay the bills and help raise my son and take care of the house. I do legit adult things. AND I play MMOs, go to conventions, and participate in fandom. And THAT’S OKAY. I’m 32 years old now and finally at peace with that part of myself. (Having a supportive husband and kid doesn’t hurt either!)
All of this is such truth. Believing these things about growing up, and especially about being over 25? Really made it hard for me when I turned 30.
I was literally suicidal on my 30th birthday. I spent the whole day in tears. I felt like I had died and my life was now worthless and small and never going to be hopeful or full of promise or fun again. I felt like killing myself on my birthday because I bought into this lie that somewhere after your mid-twenties, you diminish as a woman because the only thing that made you alive and shiny was your youth.
I’m 31 one and I’m done with that shit. I’m over it. I don’t care if you think I’m too old for something. If I’m an old lady in tumblr terms, then I’m past the legal age where I’m obligated to care what you think.
So, I’m telling you girls out there right now who are in your teens and twenties, get rid of this idea of what older women are “supposed” to look like. Get rid of this idea that “soccer moms” don’t play video games or that all women over 25 should be married and contemplating kids. Get rid of the idea that fanfic and fandom and fun things are for “kids”.
Mostly, get rid of this notion that the only thing really valuable about you is your youth. Youth is part of life, but it’s not the most valuable or beautiful or exciting time of your life. I like my life at 30 about 1000% than I did at 15, 18, 20, even 25.
I’m glad you’re still here.
Grownblr approves this message
I adore this post 🙌🏾🙌🏾🙌🏾
Jesus, all of this. Fandom life and fandom fun and PASSION for things doesn’t end at 25 or 30 or 40 or 50 – my mom still goes to as many concerts as she can (like, she goes to more live shows than I do) and is passionate about music and baseball (her chosen fandoms) at she’s 60 and a widow and a grandmother twice over. Youth isn’t your only bargaining chip and passions don’t die once you hit a certain age and it is OKAY to be an adult with adult responsibilities and also have fandom things you’re passionate about. (In fact, those are the things that make being an adult worth it. *g*)
So much of this is because American SOCIETY teaches women that 1) they’re pretty worthless to begin with and 2) whatever worth they might have ends at 25, maybe 30. So after 30, so far as the American majority culture is concerned, a woman might as well be dead. Or if she’s not dead, she’d better be focused on babies and housekeeping and fashion magazines, and nothing else.
The idea that women have ANY interests at all, past family and marriage, is just fucking MIND BLOWING to many. The idea that women might be interested in the same fannish things they were always interested in? Absurd.
At work the other day, one of our visitors asked for out names and favorite hobby.
All of the men had time-intensive hobbies and could easily name them.
The women (besides the two of us without kids) all looked panicked and then mumbled something like “I like to read, maybe?”
These women are awesome women. I know they have hobbies and things that they enjoy outside of raising their children, but you could see the sort of weird pressure there was to not admit that they wanted to do something other than raise their children.
Holy shit the NOTES this post has gotten. Take some time and read some of the responses if you get a chance. They’re AMAZING.
I felt it too, that terror when I was getting close to 30 and felt like…I dunno, like my life was about to be over, I guess. I hadn’t expected to have that reaction till I got there. I thought I had a hold of the whole nonsense about women and youth and beauty. I got it, right? I’m more than a face.
But what happened was that I got there and I panicked because I suddenly realized I had no idea: what do women over 30 actually DO, besides have families? Like, what are my options, and how to I proceed after the ones I like?
My online spaces helped me so much then, because there were all these cool older ladies I knew there. I could look at what they were doing with themselves, that they were still chasing their hobbies,
making career moves, taking kooky vacations with friends, being delightful idiots online. I knew could do that, and it’d be fine. I’d be fine.
But now I’m here on the high side of 30 and realizing all the things about being an older woman that await me. Stuff that nobody EVER talks about. Man, if you think periods are a no-go in polite society, bring up menopause sometime. What do any of us ever hear about in terms of what changes are normal for an older woman vs. what we should hit up a doctor or something about? How many examples do society give us about how an older woman continues maintaining a rich, fulfilling social life? Pretty much nada. Only other women who’ve been there can tell me. Why the fuck don’t we talk to them? They’re the people who hold the secret to our future.
I thank god for fandom and social media, because it’s what has put me in touch with women I can dish about this stuff with.
And this isn’t (in my experience) something you struggle with once you hit a watershed year and then put behind you. At least once a week I have a minor meltdown over night being an adult, or not being the right kind of adult, or being headed for spinsterhood, or never getting laid again or never falling in love, all because I’m single, over thirty and childless. The frequency with which those fears are reinforced by society and the media is just terrifying to me, and some days it’s all I can do to shake it off.
But here’s the truth I’ve found for myself in all this: I’m the only adult in this house, so I get to define what that means. Being an adult isn’t some measure of success or worth or ability. Literally all that it means is that I am of legal age to participate fulling in society and government within the bounds of all the laws on the books here in this country, and I’m held responsible if I break any of those laws. That’s literally it, for me.
So inside of that framework I get to build a life for myself and I can fill it with whatever brings me joy, whether that’s knitting or writing or watching YouTube Let’s Plays or playing video games or reading comics or travelling.
I mean look, I gripe about adulting as much as the next person because really, there’s not a lot of joy to be found in paying the bills, scrubbing the floors or negotiating Target on the Saturday before the Superbowl. But all those chore-tasks that we call “adulting” are really only a small part of what it means to be an adult. You, as the main adult in charge of your life, get to fill all those other spaces with things that bring you joy, peace or a really good head rush.
Venues like tumblr are instrumental in connecting with other women and sharing a kind of casual camaraderie because really, society as a whole has done us so wrong here that I feel like no one really knows how to navigate this, but we’re all here together sharing vacation photos and UFyH progress and cinnamon bun recipes and risque selfies and straight up porn and saying, “Hey, I don’t know man but have you tried this? It’s pretty cool.”
SO MUCH TRUTH
Kids here have *literally* tried to bully me using my age. It’s kind of hilarious. Oh, no, I survived THREE DECADES, I’ve clawed my way to a stable adult life, I have fought through HELL to finally love myself, but I should be ashamed to have fandom interests because I’m too ‘old’??!
Lol naw get the fuck outta here with your ageist bullshit. I’ll be out here, finally enjoying my life. I hope you’ll make it to this place someday, too, instead of loudly bragging about your youth as you silently dread your ‘expiration date.’
I’m going to be 28 next month and I still fangirl hard.
Honestly, I’m even more of a fangirl now than I was when I was in my teens and early twenties. And it’s better now, actually. For one, it’s adult fangirls who tend to have more disposable income for their fandom-related interests.
Also, I’m now at the point where I don’t care as much about the opinions of society large. Like, I seriously don’t care what Businessman Bob thinks of my interests, whether they’re “immature” or “inappropriate”. I have loved ones in my life who, if they don’t also participate in fandom, are accepting of me and the part of me that will always love fan-related things. They love me, and I love me. (And I love their support.)
But yeah, I spent my younger years trying so desperately to tone down the fangirling to seem cooler or to make a relationship work. Now I know those relationships weren’t worth it. Anyone that asks you (either explicitly or implicitly) to give up an integral part of you isn’t good for you.
I’m pleased with who I am now. And one of the things I am is a fangirl.
Ah, this post kinda changed my life. Glad it’s back on my dash
This is a super, super important post to me. Guys, I have Sailor Moon figures on my desk and Steven Universe prints hanging up at my office with my boss’ kidrobot vinyl toys on the windowsill. My coworkers have Spirited Away tattoos. The tech team goes to comic conventions together. Guys, growing OLD does not mean you have to eliminate fandoms from your life. There are so, so many adults in fandom that are living their best life AND supporting themselves. Your fan life doesn’t end after 22.
