the curious things

"The morality of equality is an evil and destructive morality. What is equal is replaceable, and what..."

Sat, 18 May 2013 23:14:47 -0400

“The morality of equality is an evil and destructive morality. What is equal is replaceable, and what is replaceable has no value. Equality makes everyone a slave. Value comes from two sources, superiority and scarcity. What is superior is higher in quality than what is average. And what is scarce, what is rare or unique, has higher value than can be found everywhere. The ultimate consequence of an egalitarian morality is the destruction of human value.”

- Alex Kurtagic

rosalarian: Angelina Jolie had a double mastectomy, in case you...

Thu, 16 May 2013 19:55:07 -0400

rosalarian:

Angelina Jolie had a double mastectomy, in case you hadn’t heard. How dare she remove those ticking time bombs from her chest, amiright? Like, hasn’t she learned by now that her body is public domain and we all get to vote on what she does with it? Sheesh, how selfish can ya get.

attains: words hurt ( 4.11.13 ) this is first rhyming poem and...

Sun, 12 May 2013 17:50:46 -0400

attains:

words hurt ( 4.11.13 )

this is first rhyming poem and i think it’s pretty sucky tbh but it’s what i felt so i wrote it you know

"It’s not just that she has a song on Born to Die called “Lolita”—there are many other pop songs..."

Sat, 11 May 2013 11:24:42 -0400

“

It’s not just that she has a song on Born to Die called “Lolita”—there are many other pop songs named after the character. (Or, rather, the pop culture idea of the character. And pop music is awash with the Lolita archetype—most infamously, perhaps, Britney Spears in a schoolgirl outfit in the music video for “Baby One More Time”.) It’s that three other songs on Born to Die also contain direct references to the novel, and elements of Lolita echo through other songs. (I had considered walking you through them all in a giant, David Foster Wallace-style footnote, but I’ll spare you.) And it’s that her entire oeuvre is an ode to the same beautiful, self-destructive, damaged, unstable, sexually precocious, young American girl. It’s all “good” young girls falling for “bad” men. They know he’s bad but they just can’t help it. They’re seductively submissive; they conflate love with a kind ownership. They have big hair, red nails, short shorts, white bikinis, bare feet, and they know they’re hot. They like ice cream and chewing gum. They’re lost, reckless, doomed, “crazy”, and—in the music video for “Born to Die”—dead. But don’t worry, it’s a sexy dead.

I’m not trying to complain that Lana Del Rey is setting a bad example for “Today’s Young Girls”. She probably is, but that’s not the point, and that’s not the interesting thing. There are plenty of things and people setting bad examples for children. Del Rey seems to be a symptom of something larger that already existed—a cultural Lolita obsession, stemming from a preoccupation with youth and beauty; a fascination with relationships between young women and older men; a fear of women and their sexuality; and a tendency to blame the victims of sexual violence and characterize them as temptresses.

”

- You Know You Like Little Girls: Lana Del Rey and Dolores Haze | PopMatters

“Nabokov wrote that his first inspiration for the novel Lolita came from a newspaper article he saw about an ape at a zoo that had been taught to draw—the first thing the ape drew was the bars of his cage, and from that we get Humbert Humbert writing a book about Dolores Haze. Perhaps when Lizzy Grant created Lana Del Rey, that’s what she was doing: drawing the bars of her cage.”

Photo

Sat, 11 May 2013 10:57:41 -0400

"What grinds me the most is that we’re sending kids out into the world who don’t know how to balance..."

Thu, 09 May 2013 21:03:20 -0400

“

What grinds me the most is that we’re sending kids out into the world who don’t know how to balance a checkbook, who don’t know how to apply for a loan, don’t even know how to properly fill out a job application, but because they know the quadratic formula we consider them prepared for the world?

With that said, I’ll admit even I can see how looking at the equation x – 3 = 19 and knowing x = 22 can be useful. I’ll even say knowing x = 7 and y = 8 in a problem like 9x – 6y = 15 can be helpful. But seriously, do we all need to know how to simplify (x – 3)(x – 3i)??

And the joke is, no one can continue their education unless they do. A student living in California cannot get into a four-year college unless they pass Algebra 2 in high school. A future psychologist can’t become a psychologist, a future lawyer can’t become a lawyer, and I can’t become a journalist unless each of us has a basic understanding of engineering.

Of course, engineers and scientists use this shit all the time, and I applaud them! But they don’t take years of theater arts appreciation courses, because a scientist or an engineer doesn’t need to know that The Phantom of the Opera was the longest-running Broadway musical of all time. Get my point?

The board of education should sit down with universities and high schools alike and create options for students. Let us take business classes that substitute all the same credits as algebra. I guarantee a semester of learning how to start a small business would benefit people much more than knowing: ax^2 + bx + c = 0

”

- Chris Colfer, Struck by Lightning: The Carson Phillips Journal (x)

Nobody’s ever going to give me back the time I spent desperately struggling to get a barely adequate grate in Maths in high school. Nobody’s ever going to give me back the money I spent on additional tutoring for something that I have now, two years after my graduation, almost completely forgotten.

Don’t fucking dare call it laziness. I wanted to do heaps of additional work in subjects that interested me; instead I spent hours and hours doing Trigonometry problems. I’m a writer. I study Philosophy. I’m never going to need this shit in all my life.

Basically, millions of talented students spends enormous amounts of time, money, and nerves, trying to learn highly complicated things they’re never going to need, just so they can get through the system and, you know, do things they are actually interested in and that they’re actually going to use in their professional lives.

~~The next time someone says how students are just lazy, I’m punching them in the face.~~

(via moranion)

killdrugs: oyrishcreme: sonicdoctors: dead-end-generation: So...

Thu, 09 May 2013 20:59:01 -0400

killdrugs:

oyrishcreme:

sonicdoctors:

dead-end-generation:

So I got sent to the dean today for wearing this top. My study tech teacher said that I was “exploiting” myself and that it could be a distraction to the other students. I got up out of my seat and told her that I wasn’t going to listen to her dress codes. In a way, she was being misogynist and slut shaming and I think that’s wrong. I will continue to wear what I want and nobody can tell me not to. The fact that womens bodies are sexualized and objectified so much angers me and that’s the reason why this happened. I’m going to wear what I want, how I want, when I want and that’s it.

I was there, reblog the shit out of this guys

I’m a guy. I can’t wear a shirt like this either, even though I’m not going to be wearing a bra. it’s dress code. It’s not slut shaming. You can’t show your bra like that at most jobs. why should you at school? Yes sexism is wrong and all that, but you can’t get ‘angry at the patriarchy” because you can’t show your undergarments in public. I’m not going to wear jeans with a rip in the side or the front that show off my flowery boxers, because that’s just not appropriate for school. Have some professionalism. You can wear whatever you like at home or with your friends or whatever, yes, but school prepares you for real life.

At work you can’t have this attitude of “I wear the fuck ever I want.” and expect to keep your job. School is the same way because it’s trying to teach you that lesson. That’s unrealistic; almost any job you get is going to have someone tell you what to wear or what to do because you work for them and you represent their company. If you don’t look the way they need you to look, that makes them look bad. A tattoo parlor probably isn’t going to hire someone who dresses like a nun and a top company isn’t going to hire someone who comes to work in a tank top that shows off her bra or a guy that shows off his ballsack.

You can’t blame patriarchy for this, I’m sorry. You can’t blame sexism for this. If I wore booty shorts and you could almost see my balls through my semi transparent flowery goddamn boxers, I would get in the same amount of trouble as you, and it’s within good reason.

Here we see someone exposing a partial shot of their torso. too, we see the sexualization of said torso because it exposes a device that women are societally pressured to wear because—get this—it makes the parts of us that function as a food source to our children look aesthetically pleasing. Those of us who have breasts are told from the time that they show up, even in their adolescent stages, that breasts are secret, sacred, but also a resource to help us land a man.

You’re right. It’s not slut shaming. It’s misogyny. So is your comment.

The things that you’re comparing aren’t even on the same level. It’s hyperbolic to the extreme to compare your genitalia to breasts, which, by the by, are not sexual organs in the same sense that your cock and balls are. Oh, and as an aside? Your cock and your balls don’t really matter in this conversation. Yes, I said it. No, I’m not sorry. Your cock and your balls should not come up in a conversation about the patriarchal society’s need to sexualize women. It is dismissive and ignorant at best and insulting and harmful at worst.

If you were to show up to school wearing a muscle shirt, would you get written up and sent to the principal? I sincerely doubt it. Maybe on an off day. They would probably just tell you to change your shirt.

And this entire idea you have about work is… Just… I can’t.

Your working career, as a whole, does not depend nearly as much upon your personal clothing choices as it does upon your experience and capabilities in that field.

That being said, how would you know whether this person is going to lead a “traditional” work life or not? Perhaps they will be in school for several more years, and wish to enjoy the freedom of dress that comes with not being paid to “represent a company”(which, as previously stated, is not the reason you are paid; you’re paid to do your fucking job, not sit pretty.). Maybe they are planning on doing something that does not necessitate a strict dress code at all.

Who are you to say that this person should follow a set of arbitrary rules regarding one of the only freedoms of expression that we are allowed to have? (And that is hyperbole, friend, so now you can familiarize yourself with how it feels to be talked down to using it. Does it feel good to be infantilized? I didn’t think so.)

Also, schools do not regulate dress code to teach you the lesson of how to dress in the workforce. Schools regulate dress code because someone who donates money to the school has enough power and money to decide on arbitrary rules of propriety that are in accordance with their own personal moral code.

P.S. Anyone can get angry at anyone they want, just like I am angry at you right now, just as I’m sure this commentary will anger someone else.

P.P.S. xoxo fuck the patriarchy and fuck you xoxo

"Here’s the thing. Men in our culture have been socialized to believe that their opinions on women’s..."

Sun, 05 May 2013 00:10:36 -0400

“Here’s the thing. Men in our culture have been socialized to believe that their opinions on women’s appearance matter a lot. Not all men buy into this, of course, but many do. Some seem incapable of entertaining the notion that not everything women do with their appearance is for men to look at. This is why men’s response to women discussing stifling beauty norms is so often something like “But I actually like small boobs!” and “But I actually like my women on the heavier side, if you know what I mean!” They don’t realize that their individual opinion on women’s appearance doesn’t matter in this context, and that while it might be reassuring for some women to know that there are indeed men who find them fuckable, that’s not the point of the discussion.

Women, too, have been socialized to believe that the ultimate arbiters of their appearance are men, that anything they do with their appearance is or should be “for men.” That’s why women’s magazines trip over themselves to offer up advice on “what he wants to see you wearing” and “what men think of these current fashion trends” and “wow him with these new hairstyles.” While women can and do judge each other’s appearance harshly, many of us grew up being told by mothers, sisters, and female strangers that we’ll never “get a man” or “keep a man” unless we do X or lose some fat from Y, unless we moisturize//trim/shave/push up/hide/show/”flatter”/paint/dye/exfoliate/pierce/surgically alter this or that.

That’s also why when a woman wears revealing clothes, it’s okay, in our society, to assume that she’s “looking for attention” or that she’s a slut and wants to sleep with a bunch of guys. Because why else would a woman wear revealing clothes if not for the benefit of men and to communicate her sexual availability to them, right? It can’t possibly have anything to do with the fact that it’s hot out or it’s more comfortable or she likes how she looks in it or everything else is in the laundry or she wants to get a tan or maybe she likes women and wants attention from them, not from men?

The result of all this is that many men, even kind and well-meaning men, believe, however subconsciously, that women’s bodies are for them. They are for them to look at, for them to pass judgment on, for them to bless with a compliment if they deign to do so. They are not for women to enjoy, take pride in, love, accept, explore, show off, or hide as they please. They are for men and their pleasure.”

- Why You Shouldn’t Tell That Random Girl On The Street That She’s Hot » Brute Reason

"I have a huge appetite for sex and self-exploration. I want to express my sexuality as a strong..."

Thu, 02 May 2013 21:05:29 -0400

“I have a huge appetite for sex and self-exploration. I want to express my sexuality as a strong woman, to push my own boundaries and see which part of my psyche would take me to my next euphoric sexual experience, all in a sex positive way. I want to continue to explore my sexuality and show women it is okay to have sick fantasies and to have non-pedestrian sex. It’s okay to fuck like a man. You don’t have to be a lady in bed. I love being both dominant and submissive, and I enjoy men who are the same way (well not always). I’m a ‘Fuck Junkie’. The term ‘fuck’ defines an abrasive way of having sex; it pulverizes the idea of making love. I don’t want to make love, I want to fuck. I hunger for intense sex that I can share with one, one hundred, one thousand, or even a million people.”

- Sasha Grey

"Don’t fool yourself. English isn’t inherently superior, or easier to learn, or more sonically..."

Thu, 02 May 2013 20:42:30 -0400

“Don’t fool yourself. English isn’t inherently superior, or easier to learn, or more sonically pleasing. Its international usage comes from forceful assimilation and legacy of colonialistic injection. It isn’t a deed that one should take pride in.”

- my uncle left this comment on his friend’s Facebook status, a white British man who was bragging about how easy it is to be a native English speaker when trekking to different nations.

Escape From the Oppression Olympics

Sun, 21 Apr 2013 19:04:36 -0400

bon-cross:

Like most people, I have my pet theories about why tumblr is such a clusterfuck of identities and petty politics, and why so many people on tumblr engage in bizarre and reactionary behavior well past their teenage years. Even taking into account the Greater Internet Fuckward Theory, tumblr culture is of a very specific vein; the vilification of skepticism, the rejection of human empathy, the furious masturbation to textbook psychology issues to the point where you lose touch with the real world. The hydra has many heads; otherkins, transethnics, sapiosexuals, transtrenders, white knights, and social justice assholes from all walks of life, but at the heart of it is that one word that makes this damn website so infamous: privilege.

Read More

"Breaking news is broken. That’s the clearest lesson you can draw about the media from the last week,..."

Sun, 21 Apr 2013 16:00:43 -0400

“

Breaking news is broken. That’s the clearest lesson you can draw about the media from the last week, when both old- and new-media outlets fell down on the job. By now you’ve likely heard the lowlights. CNN and the AP incorrectly reported on Wednesday that a Boston Marathon suspect had been arrested. People on Reddit and editors at the New York Post wrongly fingered innocent kids as bombing suspects. Redditors pushed the theory that a Brown University student who has been missing for more than a month was one of the bombers—a story that gained steam on Twitter Thursday. […]

Twitter’s comeuppance could not have come soon enough. Earlier in the week, many social-media tough guys were calling CNN’s failing a sign of the times—proof that cable news couldn’t keep up with the Web. […] Because cable anchors have to fill up airtime and want to scoop their rivals, they’re eager to speculate and grab at any halfway credible sounding story they hear from their sources. Twitter, everyone on Twitter agreed, was better than that.

Then, a day later, Twitter made exactly the same mistakes. Besides the mistaken identification of the Brown student, Thursday night’s tweeters couldn’t get straight whether one or two suspects had been arrested, whether the suspects were dead or alive, and whether they were light- or dark-skinned.

The useful distinction here isn’t by medium. It’s silly to say that Twitter is a better way to follow breaking news than CNN, or vice versa. The real problem is that both Twitter and CNN now depend on technologies that make it possible to follow breaking news too closely.

We get stories much faster than we can make sense of them, informed by cellphone pictures and eyewitnesses found on social networks and dubious official sources like police scanner streams. Real life moves much slower than these technologies. There’s a gap between facts and comprehension, between finding some pictures online and making sense of how they fit into a story. What ends up filling that gap is speculation. On both Twitter and cable, people are mostly just collecting little factoids and thinking aloud about various possibilities.

They’re just shooting the shit, and the excrement ends up flying everywhere and hitting innocent targets.

”

- Breaking News is Broken: Farhad Manjoo, Slate Magazine

cuteosphere: I saw some posts circulating a while ago berating...

Sat, 20 Apr 2013 20:29:44 -0400

cuteosphere:

I saw some posts circulating a while ago berating the shipping community for sexualising homosexuality, and it kind of rubbed me the wrong way that giddy young fangirls were being told off while the media is ok to sexualise lesbians (or women in general) as much as they want. So I made this rambling little comic!

I imagine anyone with an “out-of-the-norm” fetish has experienced some of the things in this comic, regardless of age or gender. I hope you enjoy it!

publicshaming: Two explosives went off at the Boston Marathon on Monday, April 15, 2013. There are...

Wed, 17 Apr 2013 00:23:38 -0400

publicshaming:

Two explosives went off at the Boston Marathon on Monday, April 15, 2013. There are reported casualties and many more reported injured. Information is still coming in and no one is sure who is behind the attacks. Domestic terrorists? Foreign terrorists? A lone, disturbed individual? WE JUST DON’T KNOW!

But, minutes after the explosions, internet tough guys and girls were already pointing the blame and ready to kill. Posted below are some of the horrible shit that was said online, all posted no more than a couple hours after the tragedy happened. And I stress SOME. Most of the posts on here, I’m able to look through and post the very “best” of the worst. I couldn’t even keep up with all the shitty tweets today.

Blame the Muslims / Arabs / Anyone who looks or sounds Middle Eastern because we are uneducated dimwits:

The weird as hell people who actually think North Korea is behind this. (Dammit, how did we not catch that one guy on the one plane coming in from North Korea!?):

The internet tough guys/girls who really don’t fucking care who did it, whether it be an Arab, a Korean, or Mickey Mouse, they’d just really like to kill:

There’s king of the conspiracy theorists, Alex Jones, who thinks the U.S. government is behind the bombings. Why? To manipulate the American people into submission so those in power can form a one world government for the lizard people to control while Obama simultaneously takes all your guns by personally entering each and every home himself, of course!:

And then, of course, is the “THANKS, OBAMA!” crowd:

“I’m going to talk a lot of tough shit about going to war & then follow it up with the fact that I will not be one of those going to war.”

And, hell, I don’t even know how to categorize this one:

brodingershat: Okay, now I might be awake enough to ramble about work a bit. We’ll see. I’ll try to...

Mon, 08 Apr 2013 23:27:20 -0400

brodingershat:

Okay, now I might be awake enough to ramble about work a bit. We’ll see.

I’ll try to keep this relatively concise, haha.

The way I look, combined with the way I present my gender (or rather, don’t), has some pretty interesting results- you’d think it would mean that most people were confused (and maybe they are, I don’t know; I don’t really go around asking), but there’s a very definite trend of assumption that happens.

People often approach me when I’m working, calling me either sir or miss with no apparent hesitation. It’s not a matter of debate- there’s something about my appearance that seems to tip their perception in one direction or the other.

This past weekend was the first time I’ve worked three long shifts in a row in a good while, and the experience of being treated as a member of both primary sexes interchangeably throughout a day- sometimes more strongly one way one day, more strongly the other way the next- has led me to realize just how differently we treat male and female retail workers.

Some observations I’ve made are below. Note: when I say ‘men’, I mean largely heterosexual-appearing men of all races. Openly flamboyant guys tend to behave very differently- a bit closer to women, on average. (Especially on the hair thing.)

When I am perceived as female,

Women in general are:

more likely to approach me for assistance

more likely to be friendly

more likely to ask for my advice and opinions

more likely to compliment my hair

more likely to apologize for repeatedly asking me to do things

more likely to say thank you

more likely to argue with me

Men in general are:

more likely to approach me for assistance

more likely to be friendly

much more likely to ask for my advice and opinions (depending on whether or not their girlfriend is present)

more likely to accept assistance

more likely to argue with me

more likely to attempt to intimidate me (consciously or unconsciously? Who knows)

When I am perceived as male,

Women in general are:

less likely to approach me for assistance

less likely to be friendly- unless they are with a male companion (more on this after)

less likely to ask for my advice and opinions

more likely to behave dismissively towards given advice and opinions (non-vocally; it’s a lot of body language and facial cues)

more likely to say excuse me, especially “excuse me, sir” (as opposed to “hi miss! Can you…?”)

more likely to apologize for interrupting me

less likely to apologize for repeatedly asking me to do things

more likely to ask me to do specific things (getting things down from high places, typically)

less likely to argue with me

Men in general are:

infinitely less likely to approach me for assistance

much less likely to be friendly- especially if they are with a female companion

more likely to intercept questions directed to female companions and attempt to answer them

more likely to refuse assistance (to a truly ridiculous degree)

less likely to argue with me

less likely to try to intimidate me

So yeah. Some noticeable differences.

Oh, and one more on the male perception by men piece: even though dudes are generally standoffish as hell (North American, typically younger- older guys from more homosocial cultures such as are seen in certain South American countries are not inhibited by this), they’re still more comfortable with me than one of my coworkers, who is openly and fairly obviously homosexual. On the other hand, female customers who perceive me as male as more likely to be comfortable interacting with him.

One thing really stuck out to me, though.

I remember reading that men are more likely to assume that a woman’s friendliness is an indication of sexual interest, but I didn’t really think much on it.

But I think I know why, now. It’s something you don’t really notice until you’re playing both parts in quick succession (and interchangeably).

I think women, on average, are less likely to be openly friendly towards men for fear of being misunderstood- when male customers (or even male strangers, and staff in other stores) perceive me as female, I find myself doing to the same thing, because the line separating friendliness and interestedness as exhibited by men is very difficult to determine, and I want to stay on the right side of the line. It’s hard to tell.

When I’m being perceived as male, this behaviour as it’s exhibited by females becomes incredibly evident.

The tendency to be reserved and polite rather than friendly is so widespread that when a women is friendly towards me, it’s so at odds with everyone else’s behaviour that I sometimes find myself wondering if she’s hitting on me.

It startled the hell out of me when I realized that- you don’t think about it, normally. It’s just… something you think of as normal, by which I mean you don’t think about it at all. If she’d been perceiving me as female and acting the same way, I would’ve thought nothing of it. But when I’m being perceived as male, the contrast is so pronounced that it seems like it must be significant.

And I’m pretty sure that’s why women who come in with male companions- boyfriend, friend, brother, whatever- are more relaxed: they’ve got a big bewildered-looking and generally uncomfortable not available sign trailing after them. A not available sign who also misinterprets his female companion’s friendliness and responds with weird possessive machismo-motivated antics. (Sir, get off the fucking ladder, you’re going to hurt yourself.)

And younger girls are more likely to be friendly towards male workers. I’d always assumed it was an age thing. Natural flirtatiousness towards some dude with a trendy haircut, seems legit.

But I distinctly remember hearing jokes made about a young cousin growing up to be “a flirt” because she was being friendly and comfortable with my father’s friends, and I remember feeling annoyed and confused by that. She was just being friendly.

And you know what? I think that’s it.

It’s a self-perpetuating process. The stronger the attempt to not be misunderstood, the stronger the imagined importance of friendly behaviour… and the stronger the fear of being misunderstood as a result.

And rinse.

And repeat.

No wonder there are so many stupid assumptions surrounding the behaviour of the sexes.

Our gender relations are all fucked up. They’ve got nothing to do with how dudes and chicks naturally behave towards each other, and everything to do with how badly we’ve all overcomplicated something as simple as talking to people.

autumninthenorth: swedens: I love this image so much. I’ve...

Sat, 06 Apr 2013 22:57:56 -0400

autumninthenorth:

swedens:

I love this image so much.

I’ve seen some women who are offended by this and say it’s ridiculous that her cleavage is showing and things of that sort.

Personally, I think it’s great.

Why should we have an image of a women with her hair tied up and flexing her muscles like she’s a man? (not that that isn’t great too!) In a way it suggests that when our hair is down, our breasts are visible and we wear (GASP) lipstick, we’re somehow lesser than men? We can do it! We can be feminine and successful.

You see what I’m saying here, ladies?

You don’t have to lose your femininity. Being feminine is great. Being masculine is great. Strength is not limited to one way of being.

oh my fucking god, this again

okay

Have you even looked at the actual Rosie the Riveter poster lately?

She’s ALREADY WEARING LIPSTICK. AND MASCARA. AND BLUSH. Her eyebrows have been PENCILED AND TWEEZED. And underneath her work bandana? HER HAIR HAS BEEN CURLED. Rosie the Riveter is a beautiful woman. This image in no way implies that wearing feminine apparel (like cosmetics) is a negative thing.

The reason that she has her hair up and her shirt buttoned and is flexing her arms has nothing to do with prudery, or with trying to be “masculine” (as if shows of physical strength are unique to one gender). It has to do with the information at the bottom of the poster: Rosie is involved in war production. That means doing hard physical labor in a 1940s factory, where large heavy machinery can easily snag a loose lock of hair, or a bit of jewelry, or an undone button. “Makeover” Rosie would not be able to do the real Rosie’s job without serious risk of injury to herself or the people around her. In that sense, the new poster is implying that no, women are NOT capable of doing the same work as men, because they are too weak/vain/self-absorbed/whatever. The old poster is saying that, while still being feminine, women are just as capable of doing the same work as men.

Also? The new and “improved” Rosie was specifically drawn to be ANTI-FEMINIST. “[William Murai] created this image for the Brazilian Alfa Magazine to accompany an article about the End of Feminism. ‘The idea was to remake the famous feminism symbol “Rosie the Riveter” [into] a lady who is giving up on her duties and trying to look sexy again.’” (emphasis mine)

Giving up her duties and trying to look sexy? For whom, exactly? According to the artist (and the patriarchy), men. In other words, quit your job, look hot, find a man, gb2 the kitchen, and make me a sandwich, bitch. Also known as THE SAME TIRED-ASS SHIT WOMEN HEAR EVERY. FUCKING. DAY.

The new poster is not “progress.” It is not about women being “feminine and successful.” It’s about the exact opposite: women being reduced to their appearance and their sex appeal according to the standards imposed by the male gaze. She is pretty, but that’s all she is, because that’s all women are supposed to be. The real Rosie (you know, the feminist icon?) is beautiful, and feminine, and strong enough to do the work necessary to keep her country safe, just the same as any man. Her worth is not in her appeal as a decorative object, but in the product of her labor and her own awareness of her abilities.

Rosie the Riveter. Accept NO substitutes.

"Later that weekend, in a Q and A session, author and activist Alice Walker was asked a meandering..."

Sat, 06 Apr 2013 20:31:33 -0400

“Later that weekend, in a Q and A session, author and activist Alice Walker was asked a meandering question about the responsibility of Western feminists to turn their gaze on their sisters in the developing world in particular. Her answer brought forth a spontaneous whoop from the audience: “part of the problem with Western feminists, I find, is that they take after their brothers and their fathers, and that’s a real problem. And that is where, generally speaking, the loyalty is and the solidarity. So, the struggle for many of these women has just been to get what these men have and to share it with them and naturally that means that they don’t connect very much or very deeply with the women in the other cultures of the world. And that’s really a problem.””

- Alice Walker quoted by Bim Adewunmi in her article ‘The inconsistency of Femen’s imperialist “one size fits all” attitude’.

"As unbelievable as [White Dude Super Detective (WDSD)] characters are, they would become infinitely..."

Fri, 05 Apr 2013 23:50:50 -0400

“As unbelievable as [White Dude Super Detective (WDSD)] characters are, they would become infinitely more so if their race or gender were changed. In The Mentalist, WDSD Patrick Jane once grifted clients as a fake psychic, but now works as a hard-to-control resource for the California Bureau of Investigations. What if the Jane character were a Latino ex-grifter? Would his arrogance and propensity for sneaking into suspect’s homes and accusing wealthy businessmen of impropriety read as quirky and charming? Would anyone believe that a police force would allow such behavior? Could the Scotland Yard of fantasy be down with a coke-addicted black Sherlock—no matter how clever? The San Francisco police department abides Adrian Monk’s obsessive-compulsive disorder, as the FBI allows Perception’s Dr. Daniel Pierce to assist on cases, despite his unmedicated schizophrenia and paranoia, which results in hallucinations. Could a black woman be cast in those roles to the same effect? I submit, that even in the fictional worlds of literature and television, race and gender matter. Belief can only be suspended so far. And this archetype is reliant on power that comes with white maleness in American society.”

- Tamara Winfrey Harris | Privilege And The White Dude Super-Detective

"The commanding element of a hunger strike as a form of protest is precisely that it doesn’t harm..."

Fri, 05 Apr 2013 20:42:30 -0400

“The commanding element of a hunger strike as a form of protest is precisely that it doesn’t harm others physically. That absence of harm to others is part of the hunger strike’s command to pay attention: it is the antithesis of how a vilified population would be predicted to act in protest or outrage. Instead, the hunger strike is an act of harm to oneself. It involves deprivation to oneself—of nourishment. It involves a re-orientation of oneself: towards death. There is the another arresting element of a hunger strike conducted by a prisoner: it is plainly the last resort of a being who has nothing else with which to bargain: no other tool, no other leverage, no other allies who can advocate effectively or successfully for those who are striking. The prisoner who engages in an hunger strike uses the only means left at his disposal–his life–which ostensibly is the only leverage that he can have control over. In that imagined spectacle—communicated only through lawyers and journalists–the hunger strike reintroduces us to the humanity of a person who is—at least physically—hurting no one else but himself. It brings up associations of martyrdom, suffering, moral decisions—uniquely human associations. A third and most powerful element of the hunger strike is the insistence that this one aspect of someone’s existence—one’s humanity, one’s ‘aliveness’—will not be ceded to any other authority.”

- Falguni Sheth

To (All) the Colleges That Rejected Me: If only I had a tiger mom or started a fake charity.

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 19:14:04 -0400

To (All) the Colleges That Rejected Me: If only I had a tiger mom or started a fake charity.:

cognitivedissonance:

Anyone writing an academic paper on white privilege and is looking for a primary source?

Meet Suzy Lee Weiss.

Before I start, I dare you to not put your fist through your monitor while reading her ~~opinion editorial~~ Facebook-worthy bitchfest.

She didn’t get into the college of her choice and it’s everyone else’s fault because she took the advice of “be yourself” and it backfired. Here’s a passage chock full o’ cluelessness and racism:

For starters, had I known two years ago what I know now, I would have gladly worn a headdress to school. Show me to any closet, and I would’ve happily come out of it. “Diversity!” I offer about as much diversity as a saltine cracker. If it were up to me, I would’ve been any of the diversities: Navajo, Pacific Islander, anything. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, I salute you and your 1/32 Cherokee heritage.

I also probably should have started a fake charity. Providing veterinary services for homeless people’s pets. Collecting donations for the underprivileged chimpanzees of the Congo. Raising awareness for Chapped-Lips-in-the-Winter Syndrome. Fun-runs, dance-a-thons, bake sales—as long as you’re using someone else’s misfortunes to try to propel yourself into the Ivy League, you’re golden.

Suzy bemoans not having a tiger mom, or two moms, or not hanging out with an African orphan named “Kinto” — as Gawker points out, just a little too close to Kunta Kinte.

And lest you think Suzy is in dire economic straits, here’s a news article profiling her parents’ custom-built, luxury $700,000 home.

Basically, nothing is her fault — she can’t help being straight, white, well-off! Y’all should cater to her for it because she’s a hard life. Well, at least life’s been SO HARD since she found out she didn’t get into the college of her choice.

SHE’S JUST SUPER PISSED YOU GUYS. And since her sister used to be an opinion features editor at the Wall Street Journal, Suzy was able to flood the presses with her righteous white whine.