Open your mind

huzzahactuallygoodporn: awkwardpandaisaaaaawkward: schiesty: heyfatchick:

stuffingkit:

[comentary by katrinajune removed]

Hear that? Kill herself if she was as big as me. There are more important things to live and die for in this world. Being that this is a photo of me, as BIG AS I AM, with my scars that are from trying to kill myself , I find it a very interesting response.

Killing yourself isn’t painless, friends. Trust and believe it took 70+ sutures and staples, three weeks in the hospital, one reconstructive surgery, and a year of physical therapy to learn that. And it had Nothing to do with my size, if you know anything about me you know that I am not only content but happy with my appearance. I love my body with all of its imperfections, scars, and rolls.  It holds my sentience, my conscious life, and that is what is important.  

Affirmative action is needed to get the best candidates, psychologist says

minddisclosure:

Good debate by thewomaninsideme:

Using the submission because it’s too big to the ask box.

How is it discriminatory to give a hand to someone that will be put down by society all their life? It’s not easy to succeed in a environment that is always trying to put you down. It’s more than fair to take “discriminatory” mesures in a discriminatory environment. You can’t judge by the same parameters people that are not treated equally by society, especially considering that some of then will have a head start and way less obstacles to overcame. You can’t give someone a great car and put then in a great road and give someone a shit car and put then in a shit road and then tell the one is better because they got in the end first. It doesn’t matter if the second was a better driver, she/he would have to be three times better than the other to succeed.

MD’s tainted and screwed views of the world:

I acknowledge there is societal discrimination happening, much in the form of racism, that is not what I am dismissing.  What I don’t believe to be a cure for that discrimination is further discrimination.  Giving any group an advantage, no matter if justified or not, is discrimination.  

Giving a hand to someone is charity and applaudable, giving handouts and special treatments to a whole group based on ethnicity is discrimination.  By doing so you are saying they are not good enough and need a crutch to lean on?

Disclaimer:  I am in no way being aggressive in my argument, I am merely pointing out another view.  My view is sadly based upon experience, I am not origingally from North America, I’ve lived through legistated affirmative action, while it provides leverage for some, it clearly conitines to paint whole groups with ‘minority’ status.  When do they ever get to rise above?  The scholars who I interacted with within the realm of affirmative action felt their achivements would forever be tainited by perceptions of assistance through affirmative action.  

I appreciate good debate and dialogue and do not wish to offend you #thewomaninsideme or any other person.  I am against racism in it’s every form,  but affirmative action is always a good controversial topic for discussion.

Actually, affirmative action is not charity and it does not mean that these people can’t do something. It is not charity to consider that some factors are going to make things harder for some people and it is not charity to take this into account when judging the performance of different people. If one group already have a head start, how is it discriminatory to give the others some help? Discriminatory would be to close your eyes to the disparity.

Affimative actions are just taken when there is some social problem to be fixed. And the important thing is that the aim of these actions is to end themselves after some time. Things will not be fixed by doing nothing, this is a way to try to fix things or at least to decrease the disparities. The goal is to make a more diverse environment, by creating a hole in the social barrier that is preventing some people to ascend. This make not only possible to break stereotypes, but also make possible to minorities to have more representation and this will make possible to the futures generations to see what they can do. Affirmative actions are just a way to make changes, for a more equal environment. Sure, this is a long term investment, but it is better than do nothing and wait for things to fix themselves.

And my view is also based in experience as I live in a country where there is the need to take affirmative actions and while it may be controvertial, I believe it can help build a more equal society.

sluthaditcoming:

“Mark at #27:

“Wow, calling a human life a parasite.”

As a zygote and fetus, it is parasitic. During those stages of development, the one (zygote/fetus) isn’t separate from the other (parasite). The earliest part of the human life cycle is a parasitic cellular collection.

“So, when does it stop being a parasite and become a human being?”

Mark, the point is, the opening stages of the human life cycle is parasitic. The parasitic stage of the human life cycle stops upon birth and excision from the umbilicus. At that point, the life form may be sustained by resources outside (if necessary) that of the host. Food, oxygen, shelter, and so forth, may be provided independent of the host. Up until that point, the life form remains parasitic.

I would argue that the status of human being as organism with rights defined in a collective social environment and acknowledged within legal and other social systems therein, also starts at birth and host-independent viability, as well, though there have been socio-cultural systems that argue that actually happens later.

Here’s the thing about all this: it’s not an insult. It’s not a “bad” thing. Before I was born, I was a parasite on the system of my mother (and I didn’t have enough cellular structure or collective complexity to have self-awareness of an identity as “I” or “me,” incidentally). It’s just the circumstances of the biological system. Ultimately, however, during the zygote and fetus stages, the host system is the viable system, and the host’s independence is paramount in terms of rights and autonomy. The host gets to decide. I don’t get to decide, even if my spermatozoan managed to fuse with the host’s ovum. I hope I might be a party to the discussion if I did contribute a spermatozoan, but ultimately, the host (the mother, the woman) is the one who’s ultimate autonomy about health and life decisions are paramount.

You’re trying to re-categorize this issue as one of tyranny of one life over another (host over parasite), when in fact your own re-categorization is an imposition of tyranny of one life over another (your opinion over the independent health decisions of a woman, any woman). Your re-categorization demonstrates the extent to which you don’t value both the life and autonomy of women.

The maintenance of that choice – the choices women make about their own health – exceeds the potentiality of a cluster of cells. Moreover, working to ensure that choice of health and well-being decisions remains with the person most dramatically affected (and in the case of pregnancy that is the woman, not the cluster of cells) actually helps improve the health and life chances of women and clusters of cells alike.

I know it may be hard to see, but better availability of choice, and better infrastructure to support the outcomes of those choices, actually helps reduce long term human suffering. You want things to get better for potential clusters of cells? Start working to ensure that women have independence, autonomy, and choice in their health care decisions.

“I have the power and you don’t because you are a parasite in my eyes.”

One of the problems of religion and its effect on human psychology is how perfectly legitimate terms used to describe an elegant classification system have been appropriated as pejoratives. Now maybe you, Mark, aren’t religious, but here’s what happens: “Animal” becomes an insult. “Parasite” becomes something abhorrent.

Except that I am an animal, nothing more, nothing less. I share many characteristics, down to the atomic level, with many other animals. I am a chordate, but that’s not unique to me or my species. I am a mammal, but that’s not unique to me or my species. I am a social animal, but that’s not unique to me or my species. I have multiple systems of communication, but that’s not unique to me or my species.

And during the cellular collection that would eventually gain independence from its host such that it might continue to grow and attain enough consciousness that it identifies as “me” (even though that consciousness is strictly a manifestation of the material organism), I was a parasite.

I was a parasite, but that wasn’t unique to me or my species.

“It is amazing how human beings can De-humanize another human being to justify killing them.”

I agree, especially the way many men (and some women) will de-humanize women to justify killing them or oppressing them by enforcing parasitic development that threatens the health and well-being of the woman, and by trying to remove the autonomy of choice from women such that they cannot make the best possible and most well-informed decision possible.

“Oh, you aren’t human you are a parasite.”

As I’ve explained, the one doesn’t exclude the other. I’m a human, but also an animal. I am a member of a species that biologically starts off in a parasitic state before achieving viable independence, and remains an animal throughout it’s life cycle.

There’s a kind of special pleading that sometimes comes from religious believers (though perhaps you’re not a religious believer, I don’t know) who think that “human” is some sort of special achievement, some sort of unique state of being, a boss-level that you unlock in the X-box game of life. It’s easy to understand where that comes from if you imagine (as many religious believers do) that the universe is specially created for humans by a being that holds humans dear above all else.

Except that’s not the case. Sure, there are some features that don’t appear very frequently elsewhere in other animals, but at our most elemental, we’re just organisms, long chains of hydrogen and carbon, and we share many other features, such as complex neurological systems, certain environmental adaptability (within limits), tool use, omnivorous diet, an endoskeleton, certain sexual proclivities, and so on, with other animals.

And there’s no evidence that we’re special outside our own socio-cultural and psychological behavior of meaning-making. There’s no evidence of a universal creator that holds us dear. We’re not particularly special outside our socio-cultural meaning-making. It’s actually not a bad thing (or a good thing) to have started on the road to present consciousness (as an extension of the electro-chemical neural net) as a parasite. It’s just how it is. My mother happens to love her youngest former-parasite (she’s given birth to three of the little previously-non-independently-viable-collection-of-cells), but it still started as a parasite. Now her youngest has attained viability independent of host. Guess what? Mom still loves it, even when it doesn’t believe in the god that she does!

That doesn’t change the fact that Mom loves it because loving is a behavioral characteristic of many examples of the species, and because our psychology makes meaning.

“Sounds a lot like the people in Rwanda when they slaughtered thousands of people and they called them cockroaches.”

Except that those were viable humans killing other viable humans, not zygotes and not fetuses, and not in consideration of the mother’s health and well-being. Those weren’t health decisions about the integral bodily autonomy of a host, and they weren’t health decisions made by the person most affected by the health circumstance. Those were just socio-political differences fallen under that age-old human method of resolution: violence.

Nice try, but what you’ve created there is what’s known as a false equivalency, and it doesn’t work in arguing against abortion (or pretty much any other argument, for that matter). Try again.”

— So, some silly forced-birth troll decided to take on a trained biologist in the wake of Abby Johnson’s rage-bait presentation at UW, “Do women have too many rights?”

Hold on, just blacked out for a minute there from the sheer force of the eyeroll I get typing that question out…OK, I’m back.

The comments are amazing—I really recommend you check them out if you’ve got some free time—but this one in particular is one of the most eloquent, well-reasoned deconstructions of some of the most common and galling forced-birther fallacies I’ve ever come across. I love this comment. If this comment were a person I’d be writing its name on my Lisa Frank Trapper Keeper and constructing elaborate romantic fantasies about our futures together.

Right, apparently people STILL don’t fucking get it when it comes to porn.

slaterwashere: inflateablefilth:

If I choose to make porn (which I am choosing to do, incidentally), or if I choose to be an escort (which I did, once upon a time), I am not ‘selling myself’. I am not for sale. My body, my mind, my personality… these things are not for sale. What is for sale, is the option to look at my body, or interact with it. If I fuck somebody, or somebody takes a naked picture of me, I’m not losing any part of myself. No part of me has been taken in exchange for cash, just an image. If you take a photo in an art gallery, nobody’s going to accuse you of stealing the art work. If you touch a statue, and walk away from it, you’re not taking part of it with you. It’s the same for my body. If you see it, or touch it, no part of me is lost, no part of what makes me who I am is changed.

And then we come to the assumption that I’m ‘degrading’ myself in some manner by banging people for cash. Well, I’m not. I felt more degraded working minimum wage in McDonalds than I ever do when I’m taking naked photos to put online, or when I fuck random people for free (yeah, I’m a big ol’ slut, your point?) or when I’m signing up to do a screen test with a porn company. No branch of sex work or or sex as a hobby seems to be capable of making me feel degraded. And if I don’t feel degraded, then you don’t get to tell me I feel degraded, because you are not in possession of a greater understanding of my emotions than I am.

Your judgments on sex workers are contributing to the lack of safety evident in the mainstream porn industry, they are contributing to a continued ban on prostitution, making the lives of sex workers really fucking unsafe in many circumstances. By judging sex workers, you are contributing to a system that means if a sex worker is raped, nobody cares. If a prostitute is murdered, it takes about 5 more killed before the police bother to investigate. Whether you judge sex workers as bad people or as objects of pity, you’re harming us.

Do not tell me what I am allowed to use my body for and how I am supposed to feel when I go outside of that.

A Dialogue With My 86-year-old Grandmother About LGBT Rights & Marriage Equality

I saw this article: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/29/gay-activists-grandparents-marriage-equality_n_1310537.html
earlier this afternoon and I got suddenly curious how my 86yo grandmother felt about marriage equality and LGBT rights. Since she's often hilarious, I decided to interview her on the phone and post it here. I put it on speakerphone, recorded it, then transcribed it. She's in Miami, and Cuban-born, so this is translated from Spanish. She's a pretty feisty lady. I want to be her when I grow up. Here's what she said:
Me: Grandma, what do you think about this couple in their 90s supporting their gay grandkids in the fight for marriage equality?
Grandma: I think it's very nice. You have to support your family, no matter who they are. You can't reject people for things like that.
Me: If you had gay or lesbian family, would you do the same?
Grandma: I don't know if I could make a video like those people. They speak English.
Me: What about in Spanish? Would you make videos supporting marriage equality in Spanish.
Grandma: Ay... don't get any ideas. I don't want to make a video.
Me: But is it okay if I post this on the Internet? On one of my websites
Grandma: Ignorant people might yell at you.
Me: Oh, that's okay, I don't mind.
Grandma: Yes, you can put what I said on the Internet.
Me: Okay. So do you support gay and lesbian people getting married?
Grandma: I think gay people should be able to get married. Times have changed. Even my ideas have changed. There used to be a lot of ignorance and rumors about gay people, mostly because they had to live in hiding, you know, you couldn't be yourself out in public like they can be sometimes now. So I think people just made things up. But think gay people should be allowed to live their lives like everyone else.
Me: Would you go to a gay wedding?
Grandma: Yes, I would. It would probably be more lively than a regular one. I hate weddings. They're so boring.
Me: They really are. What do you think about people who protest gay marriage?
Grandma: Oh. Idiots.
Me: They're wrong?
Grandma: Idiots. Dumb people with nothing better to do. Out of all the things to protest. They should be out trying to do some good in the world instead.
Me: Do you think you would have felt the same way when you were my age?
Grandma: (Pauses) I don't think I gave it any thought. People didn't talk about these things back then. There was a lot of ignorance. Everybody knew gay people, of course, but people didn't talk about it in normal conversation, much less in public like on the news now. I think that's good. Talking is always good. When people know things, they can make up their own minds.I would like to think that maybe with a little information and thinking about it, I would feel the same way.
Me: Do you think gay people should be able to adopt kids?
Grandma: Of course.
Me: As a Christian, what do you think the Bible says about gay people?
Grandma: The Bible is very clear that Jesus doesn't care about race or gender or where you came from or anything. He loves everyone.
Me: What about the parts of the Bible that says gay people should be stoned to death?
Grandma: We don't stone people to death anymore...
Me: So you don't think that applies?
Grandma: I think God gave us some common sense to be able to figure out what parts were meant for forever, like "don't kill" and "don't steal" and "be good to people," and what parts were just a record of the society people lived in back then. We don't hide women in the dark during their periods anymore, either. Things like that.
Me: What about gays in the military? Do you think that should be allowed?
Grandma: You know, when I heard President Obama had helped made that legal, I was surprised it already wasn't. If you're willing to pick up a gun and go fight in some war somewhere for my freedom, I'm not willing to do that, so if you are, I don't care if you have a boyfriend or a girlfriend or fifteen cats.
Me: Yeah, I think most people supported that one.
Grandma: It's like I told you. God gave us common sense for a reason.
Me: I know you've had a few close gay male friends. Have you ever had a lesbian friend?
Grandma: I did in Cuba. She was my neighbor and she did everyone's hair on the block. You couldn't really tell she was a lesbian, but she told me, after many years of knowing her.
Me: What do you mean by "you couldn't tell she was a lesbian?"
Grandma: Well, she was very glamorous. She looked like a movie star all the time - that's why she did everyone's hair. Some lesbians, you can tell.
Me: In English, they call the ability to tell if someone's gay "gaydar." Like "radar" but for "gay."
Grandma: Oh! I think I have that.
Me: You think you have good gaydar?
Grandma: Well, I was an artist, so I was around a lot of gay men. And I can usually tell, but Paula fooled me.
Me: The slang term for lesbians who are very conventionally feminine in English is "lipstick lesbian."
Grandma: She did wear lipstick!
Me: Do you think a lot of older people think like you do?
Grandma: I think so. A lot of older people keep up with the news better than you think. And you get to be my age and you realize a lot of past mistakes in your thinking. You realize that a lot of things you think mattered, really don't. And the people who don't think like that, it's mostly because they don't know any better. But even at my age, people can be taught.
Me: Thank you, Pupa.
Grandma: You should show me your website when you put this up. I hope a lot of people read it.

jonathan-cunningham:

evilteabagger:

I often hear the argument “Don’t tell women what not to wear, tell men not to rape.”

I think this is retarded.

People (yes people, it isn’t just men) who rape are not the kinds of people who work well with logic and reason. I mean, they’re fucking raping people. Telling a rapist not to rape is like telling a murderer not to murder. I think we could achieve much better results by teaching people how to 1. Avoid situations where rape is possible and 2. what to do in the event of someone trying to rape you.

Call me crazy but this sounds like a much more plausible solution than trying to talk it out with the nation’s rapists.

I’m ignoring most of the trash, but Mr. Kelly raises an important point (admittedly, it’s only by mistake)- why would telling criminals not to commit crime be different in the case of rape than it is in the case of homicide, or larceny?

The answer is that many rapists don’t understand that they are rapists. If you ask people, “have you ever raped someone,” the answer will overwhelmingly be in the negative. However, if you ask questions like, “Have you ever had sexual intercourse with someone who did not want you to because they were too intoxicated to resist?” or “Have you ever had intercourse with someone by force or threat of force?” then the answer drastically changes.

Thomas at Yes Means Yes has the run down on the numbers, but Amanda Hess has some important insight into the data:

What does this mean about our “accidental” rapists?

a) The vast majority of acquaintance rapes are committed by the same people;

b) These people don’t see themselves as “rapists”;

c) They are, however, able recognize that they regularly threat, force, and intoxicate women in order to have sex with them.

When we say, “teach rapists not to rape,” we’re not saying to sit people down in a room, look them sternly in the face and say “do not rape anyone,” we’re advocating teaching people from a young age about the concept of consent, how important it as, and that any sexual interaction without consent is rape. 

As far as avoiding situations where rape is possible, 26.6% of all rape occurs in the victims’ home, another 30.9% occur in the perpetrator’s home [PDF], and 45% of all rape victims were family or friends with their assailant, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. How do you think these people feel when they read people on the internet saying how we need to teach women how to avoid situations they can be raped in? 

(Source: antigovernmentextremist)

Feminist Sex Submissive? How I Reconcile My Politics With My Sex Life

“I want people to look at me and see me as the competent, capable, intelligent woman that I am … even when I’m on my knees.”

(Source: carlykitty)

Indian High Court Rules That the Decision to Abort a Pregnancy Rests with the Wife, Not the Husband

somepolitics:

In a significant decision, the Punjab and Haryana High Court last week ruled that the right to abort a pregnancy in a marriage rests with the wife and not husband.

“A woman is not a machine in which raw material is put and a finished product comes out. She should be mentally prepared to conceive, continue the same and give birth to a child. The unwanted pregnancy would naturally affect the mental health of the pregnant woman…” said the court.

Stressing that marital intimacy between a couple does not automatically translate to the woman’s consent to child bearing, Justice Jitendra Chauhan said, “Mere consent to conjugal rights does not mean consent to give birth to a child for her husband.” Welcoming the judgement, Jagmati Sanwan, All India Democratic Women’s Association national vice-president said, “If the family conditions are unsuitable, no woman would like to give birth to a child because after all, she is the one who takes care of the children for all practical purposes. We see around us that fathers often desert their families after a couple of deliveries. But children become a part and parcel of the mother’s physical and emotional world. She invests much into their well being and she alone suffers. Hence, the rights of whether to give birth or not, should be with her.”

(Source: abokononist)

bebinn:

shmegel:

[Trigger Warning: Domestic Violence] “Why does she stay with that jerk?”

If there’s one thing I’ve learned from working in an emergency room, it’s that people are terrible liars. Maybe I only think that because the good liars don’t get caught? But a lot of people are just awful at it. They make their “I’m lying now!” faces and they tell stories that defy physics, biology, and logic, then forget their own stories.

And a lie I hear almost every day in the emergency room is “I fell down the stairs. My partner loves me. They would never hurt me.”

(In this post, I will be mixing up genders randomly in the examples, to illustrate that members of every gender abuse members of every gender. This is not the post to talk about “who does it more/who does it worse.”)

For a long time, I just couldn’t understand this. We’d get the victim in a private room locked away from the abuser, and they’d sit there with bruises or wounds or even broken bones, in a safe place surrounded by people who wanted to help them, and they’d tell us, often through tears “…I fell down the stairs.” It drove me nuts. It made me furious at the victims. Why did they do this? Did they like pain? Did they want to get murdered? Were they just unbelievably stupid? Why would someone choose to protect and return to a partner who just broke their arm?

Well, then I worked in the ER a little longer, talked to a lot more abuse victims and survivors, and it turns out there’s a lot of reasons. I’m sure this isn’t comprehensive, but I’m going to make a long list here - and often many of these reasons are working together. Some of them are deeply wrapped up in the psychology of abuse; some of them are just depressingly sensible. Each of these is based on a real person, or several of them are based on one real person - most of them are based on many real people.

1. “I don’t want to die.”

Her husband has told her that if she leaves he will kill her, and she believes this. (She may well be right.) The instant he gets a whiff of where she’s staying - and he probably will, at some point, from a well-meaning friend or through the legal system or by persistent stalking or random chance - he’s going to come there and he’s going to do something very, very bad to her. Staying with him may be horrible, but at least she gets to live. She believes that if she leaves, no one and nothing can protect her from his vengeance.

2. “I’ll die without her.”

He lives in his girlfriend’s apartment. He’s unemployed, or minimally employed, and has no education or good experience on his resume. He has no friends besides her. He’s gotten to the point where he doesn’t know how he’ll get food without her help, much less navigate all the challenges of life. And if he leaves her, he’ll be leaving everything - she’ll destroy any of his stuff that he leaves behind, stalk him so he can’t stay at the same job, and even kill his pets. If he leaves her, he’s certain that he’ll end up living on the streets.

3. “He’ll die without me.”

Her boyfriend lives in her apartment. He’s unemployed, or minimally employed. He probably doesn’t know how to get food without her help, much less navigate all the challenges of life. He tells her he’d be homeless without her, maybe even kill himself if she left him. She just couldn’t stand to be responsible for something like that; even though he’s hurt her, it would cut her to the bone to know that she had ruined or killed him.

4.”What about the kids?”

Right now, she protects the kids from her husband. He may rage at her, but she shelters them from the worst of it and she makes sure they have the best home she can give them under the circumstances. If she leaves, she doubts she can get sole custody of the kids without visitation, much less get it immediately. And if the kids are alone with him, something very bad will happen. He’ll hurt them, or turn them against her, or take them away and she’ll never see them again. Maybe all three. Her kids are her life and she can’t bear to let something like that happen.

5. “I tried once, and it made things worse.”

This isn’t the first time. He did call the cops on his husband before, and he ran away that night. The cops didn’t find enough evidence, and when he came back to get his stuff, his husband was… tearfully apologetic, actually. Somehow he talked him into staying and not taking his stuff. The punishment came later—once he’d more or less committed to staying around - and it was horrible. But he’s afraid that if he tried to leave again, he’d go through the same cycle again.

6. “I reached out once, and was rebuffed.”

In a rare moment of courage, he - with shaking hands, summoning all his strength - told someone he thought he could trust what his wife was doing to him. They told him to think about her point of view for once, to not use big drastic words like “abuse,” and to take care of his own damn problems without airing his dirty laundry. He just knows that if he reaches out again, it’s going to be the same thing. He’s lucky she didn’t find out about that time and doubts if it’s worth taking the risk again.

7. “If I call the cops, I’ll be in trouble.”

She’s a prostitute. On the side, she sells drugs. She owns guns she shouldn’t have and lives in a place she shouldn’t be. Hell, she shouldn’t even be in this country. Her lifestyle is so far outside the law that any attention from the police is likely to get her thrown in jail - so she can’t very well tell the police that her girlfriend beats her.

8. “Run away? Call the cops? I can’t even get away with sneezing!”

Her boyfriend controls every second of her time and every inch she moves. Whenever they’re apart she has to call him and check in constantly; whenever she leaves the house she has to tell him where she’s going and how long and why; he doesn’t let her think without telling him about it and getting his approval. And he enforces this - reading her mail, listening to her phone conversations, showing up randomly at her work or when she’s with friends (if she’s allowed to have any). When she’s not allowed so small a rebellion as using the wrong word, really rebelling against him seems impossible. She figures he’d catch her if she even thought about trying.

9. “If it were so bad, someone would have done something.”

Everyone knows what’s going on in his life. His friends have seen his girlfriend hitting him; his parents have heard him say “I can’t do that, she won’t let me” about a million things; the neighbors have heard the screams and crashes when she explodes. He knows everyone knows already, and knows that they haven’t done anything even though they know. So, he figures, what difference would it make to tell them? Clearly they’ve already decided that this isn’t bad enough to call in the authorities over.

10. “It’s a joke to him, so it should be a joke to me.”

His boyfriend hits him and treats it like a joke, laughing uproariously and expecting his victim to laugh along. To make a big deal out of this kind of violence would just be humorless, and he’s got a sense of humor, doesn’t he? Even when the only punchline is “Haha, you’re in pain!” And how do you go to the cops with a story like “He played a joke on me?” Cops don’t arrest people for jokes.

11. “I’m just terrified to hurt her feelings.”

Abuse has made her telepathic. Years of desperately trying to keep her girlfriend happy so bad things won’t happen have made her keenly aware of her girlfriend’s every fleeting emotion. Her girlfriend is a tiny bit moody and she rushes to coddle and comfort her; her girlfriend is a tiny bit happy and she just about throws a party for her. She’s so used to reading her girlfriend’s feelings and translating them into her own that she can’t stand to do something that would really hurt her girlfriend’s feelings. Just the thought of dealing with that much anger - when even a tiny amount of anger is a big deal in their house - is too terrifying to imagine.

12. “I’m so embarrassed I let him do this to me.”

He’s been abusing her for years. She doesn’t see herself as some cowed little victim; she’s a smart woman, an independent woman to all appearances, maybe even a declared feminist. So to come out now and say he’s been hurting her all along just feels stupid. Everyone’s going to ask “Why did you stay with that jerk?” and she’s not going to have an answer. She tells everyone her relationship is wonderful and a paragon of communication and respect, and the longer she keeps up the charade, the harder it is to say not only “Turns out I’m a cowed little victim,” but “Turns out I’m a cowed little victim and also a liar.”

13. “I’ve learned to live in her system.”

He knows all the rules by now. As long as he always treats his wife with the utmost politeness and gentleness, and always has dinner ready before she comes home, always is up for sex when she wants it, and always lets her make the decisions, things are okay. He actually feels pretty safe when he’s being “good.” So it doesn’t seem like there’s anything wrong with the relationship, because it goes great so long as he does as he’s supposed to.

14. “We’re outsiders; no one cares about our problems.”

They’re a “lesbian couple”, one of them is transgender, and they’re kinky to boot. She’s had enough problems just explaining to the “authorities” that their relationship exists; how the hell is she supposed to convey that there’s something wrong with it? She’s internalized enough prejudice that she figures it’s sort of her own fault for being in such a strange relationship, and she doesn’t figure anyone cares that much about the troubles of a weirdo.

15. “After all he’s done for a jerk like me?”

Her husband has put up with so much from her. This isn’t #13; these were genuinely bad things. He helped her pay off the nasty credit card debt she was in. He stayed with her even after she got fired from her job and flunked out of school; he even bailed her out of jail when she really fucked up. Who could blame the guy if he loses his patience now and then? She figures she really is a very difficult person to live with, she deserves some punishment for all she’s screwed up, and she should be grateful that he’s kept her around at all. As he reminds her when she’s pushed him too far - who else would love her?

16. “She’s really nice… mostly.”

Her wife is super sweet and loving. She’s a flowers-and-chocolates romantic, a believer in true love and love at first sight, and she treats her just like a princess. Except now and then, things get tense in the relationship, and bad things happen. Really bad things. Her wife just doesn’t seem like herself and she explodes. But the apology is even sweeter and lovinger than before and things are good again. Maybe it was a one-off. Or a two-off. A three-off? Maybe this really is the last time and from now on she’ll just have the nice wife she fell in love with. She’s certainly being nice now, and how could you leave someone like that?

17. “It just isn’t done in our community.”

In her culture, the husband is the leader of the household and what he says, goes. He has the right to hit his wife if he feels it’s necessary. Divorce is a taboo. Good women don’t leave their husbands; good women make their husbands happy. She feels like going against her husband would be going against her entire culture, and she can’t bear to do that. The community wouldn’t support her and she’d feel like a traitor to her own people.

18. “Actually, I’m abusing her.”

When she explodes, she doesn’t tell her boyfriend “I hate you;” she tells him “you hate me.” She tells him that he’s hurting her, that she’s responding the way she is because she just can’t take his abuse any more, and he believes her. He’s trying desperately to treat her right, to treat her the way she deserves, and he just keeps fucking up. Often when she’s yelling he yells back - sometimes he even hits back - and that makes him more sure than ever that he’s the real abuser here.

19. “It’s not that bad.”

She firmly believes that real abuse is when they punch you - and her husband’s only slapped her with an open hand. Real abuse is when they beat you - and he only yells at her until she cries and then yells at her to stop crying. Real abuse is when they rape you - and he always makes her say “yes” before he has sex with her, no matter how little she wants it. She recognizes there’s something wrong in their relationship, but could never call it like, abuse abuse, and so she can’t react to it like it’s real abuse.

20. “This is how relationships work, isn’t it?”

Her parents’ relationship was a constant cycle of drama and violence. Her relationship with her parents was just as bad. Her high school boyfriend hit her and her college boyfriend made her have sex when she didn’t want it. She kinda figures everyone else’s relationship is just the same behind the scenes. All she worries about is how to make the best of an abusive relationship; while she knows it intellectually, she doesn’t believe deep down that a non-abusive relationship is possible, at least for her.

The one thing that isn’t on the list, anywhere, is “the victim is just weak and stupid.” Victims of abuse come in all types and lots of them really are flawed in big and small ways - but their reasons for staying with their abusers are not “just stupid.” They’re complicated, insidious, and saddest of all, sometimes right.

If any of these sound like you - even if they sound like you in a “Yeah, but…” sort of way - even if your partner never laid a finger on you physically, it was just some yelling - even if you’re a man and she’s a woman and it doesn’t work like that - even if you swear your situation isn’t abuse because - call this number:

1−800−799−SAFE(7233)

TTY: 1−800−787−3224

It’s the National Domestic Violence Hotline and they will talk to you. They are not going to call the cops on your partner (or you). They are not going to tell you that you have to leave your relationship. Calling them is not a commitment of any kind - you can always call them and decide to stay in your relationship after all. All they’re going to do is talk to you, give you an outside perspective from people who are trained to recognize and deal with abusive situations, and help you find resources for getting out of your situation if you decide that you want them.

I volunteer a couple times a month taking calls for my local rape victim advocacy program, and since domestic violence and rape often go hand in hand, we do get calls from people in abusive situations as well. If you’re not ready to leave, we can help you make a safety plan for staying. We have legal and medical resources, as well as places for you to stay for a while if you do choose to leave. There’s absolutely no judgment about your decisions - our job is to listen to you, and to help you figure out what you want to or can do.

(Source: pervocracy.blogspot.com)

How we teach little girls to accept abusive behavior from men as “flattering”

“On a somewhat serious note today because of a conversation the other day:

I am sure every girl can recall, at least once as a child, coming home and telling their parents, uncle, aunt or grandparent about a boy who had pulled her hair, hit her, teased her, pushed her or committed some other playground crime. I will bet money that most of those, if not all, will tell you that they were told “Oh, that just means he likes you”. I never really thought much about it before having a daughter of my own. I find it appalling that this line of bullshit is still being fed to young children. Look, if you want to tell your child that being verbally and/or physically abused is an acceptable sign of affection, I urge you to rethink your parenting strategy. If you try and feed MY daughter that crap, you better bring protective gear because I am going to shower you with the brand of “affection” you are endorsing.

When the fuck was it decided that we should start teaching our daughters to accept being belittled, disrespected and abused as endearing treatment? And we have the audacity to wonder why women stay in abusive relationships? How did society become so oblivious to the fact that we were conditioning our daughters to endure abusive treatment, much less view it as romantic overtures? Is this where the phrase “hitting on girls” comes from? Well, here is a tip: Save the “it’s so cute when he gets hateful/physical with her because it means he loves her” asshattery for your own kids, not mine. While you’re at it, keep them away from my kids until you decide to teach them respect and boundaries.

My daughter is 10 years old and has come home on more than one occasion recounting an incident at school in which she was teased or harassed by a male classmate. There has been several times when someone that she was retelling the story to responded with the old, “that just means he likes you” line. Wrong. I want my daughter to know that being disrespected is NEVER acceptable. I want my daughter to know that if someone likes her and respects her, much less LOVES her, they don’t hurt her and they don’t put her down. I want my daughter to know that the boy called her ugly or pushed her or pulled her hair didn’t do it because he admires her, it is because he is a little asshole and assholes are an occurrence of society that will have to be dealt with for the rest of her life. I want my daughter to know how to deal with assholes she will encounter throughout her life.

For now, I want my daughter to know that if someone is verbally harassing her, she should tell the teacher and if the teacher does nothing, she should tell me. If someone physically touches her, tell the teacher then, if it continues, to yell, “STOP TOUCHING/PUNCHING/PUSHING ME” in the middle of class or the hallway, then tell me. Last year, one little boy stole her silly bandz from her. He just grabbed her and yanked a handful of them off of her wrist. When I went to the school to address the incident, the teacher smiled and explained it away to her, in front of me, “he probably has a crush on you”. Okay, the boy walked up to my daughter, grabbed and held her by the arm and forcibly removed her bracelets from her as she struggled and you want to convince her that she should be flattered? Fuck off. I am going to punch you in the face but I hope you realize it is just my way of thanking you for the great advice you gave my daughter. If these same advice givers’ sons came home crying because another male classmate was pushing them, pulling their hair, hitting them or calling them names, I would bet dollars to donuts they would tell him to defend themselves and kick the kid’s ass, if necessary. They sure as shit wouldn’t say, “he probably just wants a play date”.

I will teach my daughter to accept nothing less than respect. Anyone who hurts her physically or emotionally doesn’t deserve her respect, friendship or love. I will teach my boys the same thing as well as the fact that hitting on girls doesn’t involve hitting girls. I can’t teach my daughter to respect herself if I am teaching her that no one else has to respect her. I can’t raise sons that respect women, if I teach them that bullying is a valid expression of affection.

The next time that someone offers up that little “secret” to my daughter, I am going to slap the person across the face and yell, “I LOVE YOU”.”

— You Didn’t Thank Me For Punching You in the Face « Views from the Couch (via golden-notebook) (via bacon-beer-and-boobs) (via liquidinterpretations)

womenaresociety:

My Big Feminist Wedding
by Jessica Valenti

One of the first things people ask when they find out that I am engaged is what the proposal was like. (The second is not so much a question, but a speedy grab for my left hand to inspect the diamond they imagine they will find there.)

The problem is that there is no proposal story to tell. At least, not the kind most people expect. There were no rose petals scattered on a satin-sheeted bed, no trips to the Eiffel tower, no ring hidden in a champagne glass. There wasn’t even any kneeling. My partner Andrew and I made the leap in the way that suited us best - we talked about it, and jointly decided that we should get engaged. For us, it was perfect. But, as I soon learned, there is no such thing as perfect when you are a feminist getting married.

Andrew encountered confused faces when he talked about our non-traditional proposal; my extended family looked similarly quizzical when I mentioned that I would be keeping my last name. The fact that Andrew and I had had conversations about the misogynist traditions that accompany marriage made us a bit of an oddity, it seemed. Then there were the fellow feminists who felt that getting married was a sop to the patriarchy, and the problems that we encountered as a couple. Because, with the best will in the world, kissing goodbye to gender roles can be more difficult than it looks.

As a kid, I wasn’t sure that I would ever get married - I was not the kind of little girl who played at being a bride. My parents have a wonderful marriage, but they have been together since my mother was 12, married when they were just teenagers and are barely ever separated. They even work together. As a result, I have always thought of marriage as involving the loss of a certain amount of autonomy. Not to mention that, as feminist as our household was, I grew up seeing my mother do the majority of the domestic work and her paid day job to boot. That did not exactly sweeten the deal.

As I grew up and began identifying myself as a feminist, there were plenty of issues that continued to make me question marriage: the father “giving” the bride away, women taking their husband’s last name, the white dress, the vows promising to “obey” the groom. And that only covers the wedding. Once you get married, women are still implicitly expected to do the majority of the housework and take care of any future children. I remember reading one study that said that even couples who had been living together for years in equitable bliss ended up with a more “traditional” division of household labour if they got married - as though signing that piece of paper somehow skewed their sense of fair play.

But never underestimate the power of being in love. Andrew is fabulous and I want to be married to him - due in no small part to the fact that he also identifies himself as a feminist and that an equal partnership is just as important to him as it is to me. So when we decided to get married, we talked about the traditions to avoid (white dress), what to incorporate (both parents walking us both down the aisle) and, of course, how to plan the wedding.

From the beginning, Andrew and I agreed that we would not be one of those couples in which the woman ends up doing all of the wedding-related work because she is the person who is supposed to care about it the most. No, we were going to do this fairly. He would take care of booking the music, I would handle the flowers. I would cover the invite list, he would deal with the invitations. Several months later, when I found myself up to my eyeballs in sample invitations and band websites - while Andrew read the newspaper or dallied online - I was ready to throw in the towel on so-called domestic bliss.

As founder of the website feministing.com, I have written online about everything from vibrators to the form of birth control I use, but I had been worried about blogging about our engagement. When you address personal issues, especially those so fraught with politics, you are sure to cause a stir. But all of a sudden, touching on the woes of feminist wedding planning did not seem such a bad idea. My feminist friends and community online took the announcement well - with the exception of several commenters who felt my getting married was antithetical to feminism. One, with the username looselips, wrote that she was disappointed that I “seem to find flaws with patriarchy, but fail to find a way to bring it down”. But mostly there were plenty of congratulations and hundreds of comments from other feminists on the ways their political beliefs had informed their weddings and marriages. EmilyKennedy wrote about her purple wedding dress, lack of a diamond ring and her decision not to have a “crap-tastic white cake”. ShifterCat told of a friend’s wedding where, as a small memento, every guest received “a little scroll saying that a donation has been made in their name to Habitat For Humanity”. Another reader told me about a website - offbeatbride.com - that was a good alternative to the frou-frou sites that seem to dominate the wedding-based blogosphere. This was the kind of advice I was looking for.

Emboldened, I blogged again - this time about the ways I was incorporating feminism into the wedding. I wrote about keeping my last name and buying a not-quite white dress from a store that gives all the money to charity. I blogged about the struggle Andrew and I had getting engaged in the same month that California overturned same-sex marriage rights. We had actually discussed not getting married until everyone could; instead, we decided to use our impending marriage as a way to talk about same-sex marriage among our friends and family. In our engagement announcement, for example, we asked anyone considering getting us a gift to instead donate to an organisation fighting for same-sex marriage rights. It felt good, feminist even, to write about an institution so wrought with sexism and discuss ways to make it our own.

To others, however, the way I was approaching my wedding - questioning old traditions; creating new ones - just made me a bridezilla. Kathryn Lopez of the conservative publication National Review, wrote a post entitled “You’ve Never Met a Bridezilla Like a Feminist Bridezilla”, mocking my attempts to subvert traditional wedding standards. Another blogger wrote about Andrew, featuring his picture and a link to his personal website, in a faux contest - “Beta of the month” - the idea being that a real alpha male wouldn’t be caught dead marrying a feminist. (Or a “ball-cutting cybersuccubus”, as I was, in fact, described. Think I can get that on a business card?)

But as it turned out, it was posts such as these, which mocked us for being thoughtful about our decision to get married, that brought Andrew and I closer. And the dismissing of our feminist values made us discuss and embrace them even more. Andrew took a renewed interest in his wedding-planning tasks, recognising that it wasn’t just important for the sake of my sanity, but as a political statement too.

Because we do want our marriage to be a partnership, with bumps in the road to be sure, but bumps to be taken together.

So, while our wedding will be politicised, it won’t be a feminist caricature: I won’t be sporting Birkenstocks under my dress and we won’t ask the “Goddess” for a blessing. But we will head into the wedding, and the marriage, as equals. Now, when our friends and family give us strange looks when we discuss our non-proposal, or the hyphenated last name options for our future children, we just smile. Because whether it’s an old-fashioned aunt or a stranger online, we realise that the only opinion that matters when it comes to our marriage is ours.

*Thanks to Madoka for bringing this to my attention.

Dear Customer who stuck up for his little brother,

sweetupndown:

you thought I didn’t really notice. But I did. I wanted to high-five you.

Yesterday I had a pair of brothers in my store. One was maybe between 15-17. He was a wrestler at the local high school. Kind of tall, stocky and handsome. He had a younger brother, who was maybe about 10-12 years old. The only way to describe him was scrawny, neat, and very clean for a boy his age. They were talking about finding a game for the younger one, and he was absolutely insisting it be one with a female character. I don’t know how many of y’all play games, but that isn’t exactly easy. Eventually, I helped the brothers pick a game called Mirror’s Edge. The youngest was pretty excited about the game, and then he specifically asked me.. “Do you have any girl color controllers?” I directed him to the only colored controllers we have which includes pink and purple ones. He grabbed the purple one, and informed me purple was his FAVORITE.

The boys had been taking awhile, so their father eventually comes in. He see’s the game, and the controller, and starts in on the youngest about how he needs to pick something different. Something more manly. Something with guns and fighting, and certainly not a purple controller. He tries to convince him to get the new Zombie game “Dead Island.” and the little boy just stands there repeating “Dad, this is what I want, ok?” Eventually it turns into a full blown argument complete with Dad threatening to whoop his son if he doesn’t choose different items.

That’s when big brother stepped in. He said to his Dad “It’s my money, it’s my gift to him, if it’s what he wants I’m getting it for him, and if your going to hit anyone for it, it’s going to be me.” Dad just gives his oldest son a strong stern stare down, and then leaves the store. Little brother is crying quietly, I walk over and ruffle his hair (yes this happened all in front of me.) I say “I’m a girl, and I like the color blue, and I like shooting games. There’s nothing wrong with what you like. Even if it’s different than what people think you should.” I smile, he smiles back (my heart melts!) Big brother then leans down, kisses little brother on the head, and says “Don’t worry dude.” They check out and leave, and all I can think is how awesome big brother is, how sweet little brother is, and how Dad ought to be ashamed for trying to make his son any other way.

This is a very sweet story and it’s really great if it’s a real one. And if it’s not real, it’s still sweet.

(Source: sweetupndown9)