the muppets ended their partnership with chik-fil-a over their blatant anti-gay remarks, and chik-fil-a is now lying about it. spread the word, yo.
also, keep supporting the muppets, those guys are amazing.
"A woman’s worst nightmare? That’s pretty easy. Novelist Margaret Atwood writes that when she asked a male friend why men feel threatened by women, he answered, “They are afraid women will laugh at them.” When she asked a group of women why they feel threatened by men, they said, “We’re afraid of being killed."
—
http://www.pbs.org/kued/nosafeplace/articles/nightmare.html (via alullaby)
That sums it up
(via erikawithac)
This reminds me of a discussion we had in school, and one girl was talking about living in fear of her safety because she is a girl, and this guy chimed in and was all “It’s hard for guys too! I’m so awkward around girls! It’s embarrassing!” Yeah, not the same thing, exactly?
(via tulletulle)
Wow.
(via kittencoaster)
This reminds me of an article about online (heterosexual) dating that I read a while ago. It listed men’s and women’s worst fears about meeting someone from online. The highest ranked fear that men had was that their date would be fat, whereas the highest ranked fear that women had was that their date would turn out to be violent and kill them.
I think that says a lot.
(via kaitg)
The Quiet Typist: The best response we've heard to Daniel Tosh's 'misquoted' rape jokes
Editor’s note: By now, you’ve probably heard about the terrible (because it’s all too common) incident that happened recently at the Hollywood Laugh Factory between comedian Daniel Tosh and a female audience member who was vocal about her displeasure with Tosh defending rape jokes in his stand-up act.
Tosh, who is known for his over-the-line comedy, both live and on-air, apologized over Twitter to the offended individual, providing some legitimacy to the claim that he went way over the line in this instance.
The he-said/she-said details of this particular instance, however, are far less important than the emerging discussion by comedians, feminists and media experts who have either expressed their support of Tosh or stand-up in general or commented upon the persistence of “off-limits” joke territories.
Lovers of the art form generally seem to agree that comedy is one of the few sacred spaces where commentary can be made on difficult, taboo topics in order to invite dialog. But most would also agree it takes a keenly honed sense of awareness and subtlety to execute these types of jokes successfully.
Of all the blog posts and news articles written about this recent flare-up of the age old comedy question so far, it’s been Austin area comedian Curtis Luciani who offered up the most deceptively eloquent statement on the larger matter that we’ve seen yet. As a member of sketch comedy groups Your Terrific Neighbors and The Hustle Show, he’s no stranger to flirting with that razon-thin line between hysterical and ostracizing. But he’s also, clearly, a really smart dude who gets the meaning and use of satire.
Published with his permission, here’s his response in its full, unapologetic glory (be advised: it contains dirty language) as it appeared on Facebook Wednesday.
—-
Let’s imagine a world in which women cut men’s dicks off.
“How to confuse a pro-lifer with one question.”
this is awesome. i love it when people get other people to actually THINK.
This video is both amazing and disturbing to me.
Amazing because it really succinctly calls them out on their lack of compassion and demonstrates that they aren’t just ethically compromised but LOGICALLY compromised too. And when they’re confronted with that reality they either try to retreat into meaningless rhetoric (“that’s between her and god”, “I’m no lawyer I’ll leave it up to society to decide”, “all I know is that I’ve been called to do this, we just have to pray for them”) or like the last interviewee just completely shut down any dialogue that even attempts to apply reason and logic to this issue.
The disturbing thing is the reality that questions like this in all likelyhood aren’t going to change the minds of any of these people. They’re too far in it. Too much of who they are is invested and embedded to start thinking and doubting now.
Because the church has done such a fantastic job of tying this issue to their religion and their religion to their self identity the idea that just maybe they should think critically about abortion is literally repulsive. Critical thinking is an attack on how they define themselves as a human beings.
To truly question is to undo who they are.
No wonder these people are so small and hateful and dogmatic.
Kathrine Switzer, the first woman to run the Boston Marathon:
In 1967, Kathrine Switzer was the first woman to run the Boston marathon. After realizing that a woman was running, race organizer Jock Semple went after Switzer shouting, “Get the hell out of my race and give me those numbers.” However, Switzer’s boyfriend and other male runners provided a protective shield during the entire marathon.The photographs taken of the incident made world headlines, and Kathrine later won the NYC marathon with a time of 3:07:29.
"Oppression doesn’t require intent to thrive. In fact, the way oppression thrives best is by allowing people to marginalize people without intent, as that shows that the ideologies of gender essentialism and cissexism are so ingrained in you that you don’t even notice it."
— autumn-and-eve, on why “I didn’t INTEND to be [insert -ism here]” is bullshit (via lettherebecramp)
"wWe let Willow cut her hair. When you have a little girl, it’s like how can you teach her that you’re in control of her body? If I teach her that I’m in charge of whether or not she can touch her hair, she’s going to replace me with some other man when she goes out in the world. She can’t cut my hair but that’s her hair. She has got to have command of her body. So when she goes out into the world, she’s going out with a command that it is hers. She is used to making those decisions herself. We try to keep giving them those decisions until they can hold the full weight of their lives."
—
(On why he let Willow cut all of her hair off)
Read more: Will Smith On Allowing Willow To Cut Her Hair: ‘She Has Got To Have Command Of Her Body’ | Necole Bitchie.com
- He raises a really great point. What would it mean to believe very early that my body was mine. That it’s not for anyone or for any particular purpose other than to be mine until I decide otherwise.
(via larepublicadedet)
I was damned near 30 before I could believe my body belonged to me & me alone. Dear people who take an issue with this,
Let the Smiths do right by their babies & shut the fuck up about how you think they should parent.
(via karnythia)
"When I want to know what misogyny is, I don’t ask a man. When I want to know what racism is, I don’t ask a white person. When I want to know what homophobia is, I don’t ask a heterosexual. When I want to know what transphobia is, I don’t ask a cisgender person. When I want to know what ableism is, I don’t ask an able-bodied person. The contours and definitions of oppression are best articulated by the oppressed."
—
Son of Baldwin
(via monkeyknifefight)
Culture matters
Sometimes I hear people say that racism/sexism/etc in culture isn’t important or worth criticizing. ”Oh it’s just a book,” they say. ”It’s just a crappy TV show.” ”It’s just a commercial.”
This argument always baffles me. It’s like if you put poison into a fish-tank and then say “Oh well I didn’t poison the fish, I just poisoned the water.” The fish lives in the water, dumbass; it’s completely submerged in and surrounded by the water. I’m pretty sure that poisoned water is going to affect the fish.
Similarly, we all live constantly immersed in this miasma of information that we call “culture.” People are not born prejudiced. We don’t emerge from the womb knowing that all black men are scary thugs, that all Latinas are spicy sexpots, that all Indians are violent savages, that all women are weepy and frail, that all gay men are depraved pedophiles, and that all people in wheelchairs are objects of pity. We learn these things, usually starting at a very young age, and we often learn them from our culture — the books we read, the movies we watch, and the constant barrage of advertising that we don’t really pay attention to but which still manages to seep into our brains, and which shapes the way we think about the world, for better or for worse.
If you want to save the fish, you need to purify the water.
Not All Like That
Imagine a minefield… a strip of land seeded with traps that will maim or kill you if you put one foot in the wrong place. What’s the wrong place? You’ll know when you step there. There’s no rhyme or reason to it. The pattern that gets you safely through one part might get you killed in another part.
It isn’t that every square inch of soil in the minefield means certain death, of course. But what would the ratio of safe ground to mined ground have to be before you could actually relax, before you could feel safe… before you could be safe, in practical terms?
Imagine that you and your entire family are woken up at dawn every day and made to cross the minefield in order to just live your lives. You’re not allowed to take the same route as each other. You have to watch each other as you make your way through an invisible deadly maze, never knowing if today will be the day but always knowing that it could be.
And one day, while you’re in the middle of that maze, watching your children or your siblings pick their way carefully around you, you say, “I HATE EVERY LAST INCH OF THIS FUCKING MINEFIELD.”
And then you hear a voice from up above you, from someone who doesn’t have to walk the minefield… someone who’s allowed to use a footbridge to bypass it every day while you’re inching your way through it, someone who gets a head start on everything compared to you and yours because they don’t have to go through the minefield…
And the voice says, “That isn’t fair. Sure, some of the minefield will kill you if you step on it, but it isn’t all like that.”
Oh my god, this.
"when people get mad at other people saying that something they did was racist/sexist/homophobic/whatever
I don’t get it
it’s like
If you were hanging out with your friend and your friend turns to you and says “hey I don’t know if you noticed but you just stepped on my foot, can you please stop”, I am guessing most people would say “oh man, I’m sorry” and maybe watch where they were walking a little better
You probably would NOT:
- yell at your friend for accusing you of stepping on their foot
- deny that you had stepped on your friend’s foot
- argue with your friend over how you step on everyone’s feet equally, so it shouldn’t matter
- insist that you didn’t step on their foot that hard, so it couldn’t have hurt them
- get offended over the implication that the way you walk is wrong
- say “okay, but what about MY foot?”
- step on your friend’s foot more to show how it isn’t even a big deal and nobody cares about people stepping on each other’s feet anymore
- reference that one time when your friend stepped on YOUR foot and you didn’t complain
- tell them you didn’t mean to do it, so you’re not responsible for stepping on their foot
- deny that your friend has a foot
and I mean sometimes the person isn’t even a friend or someone you know but that doesn’t matter, don’t fucking step on people"
I don’t get it
it’s like
If you were hanging out with your friend and your friend turns to you and says “hey I don’t know if you noticed but you just stepped on my foot, can you please stop”, I am guessing most people would say “oh man, I’m sorry” and maybe watch where they were walking a little better
You probably would NOT:
- yell at your friend for accusing you of stepping on their foot
- deny that you had stepped on your friend’s foot
- argue with your friend over how you step on everyone’s feet equally, so it shouldn’t matter
- insist that you didn’t step on their foot that hard, so it couldn’t have hurt them
- get offended over the implication that the way you walk is wrong
- say “okay, but what about MY foot?”
- step on your friend’s foot more to show how it isn’t even a big deal and nobody cares about people stepping on each other’s feet anymore
- reference that one time when your friend stepped on YOUR foot and you didn’t complain
- tell them you didn’t mean to do it, so you’re not responsible for stepping on their foot
- deny that your friend has a foot
and I mean sometimes the person isn’t even a friend or someone you know but that doesn’t matter, don’t fucking step on people"
—
tooth&nail: (via wewantrevolutiongirlstylenow)
#DENY THAT YOUR FRIEND HAS A FOOT #oms #additionally i would like to supply: #suggest that your friend enjoys having their toes trampled #tell your friend to ask nicely #tell your friend that you’re just trying to prepare them for the harsh reality of life in a foot-stomping society #tell your friend that WELL AT LEAST I DIDN’T KICK YOU IN THE TEETH and then continue standing on their foot out of petulance #serious business posts
(via laralaralara)
"True gender equality is actually perceived as inequality. A group that is made up of 50% women is perceived as being mostly women. A situation that is perfectly equal between men and women is perceived as being biased in favor of women.
And if you don’t believe me, you’ve never been a married woman who kept her family name. I have had students hold that up as proof of my “sexism.”
My own brother told me that he could never marry a woman who kept her name because “everyone would know who ruled that relationship.” Perfect equality – my husband keeps his name and I keep mine – is held as a statement of superiority on my part."
And if you don’t believe me, you’ve never been a married woman who kept her family name. I have had students hold that up as proof of my “sexism.”
My own brother told me that he could never marry a woman who kept her name because “everyone would know who ruled that relationship.” Perfect equality – my husband keeps his name and I keep mine – is held as a statement of superiority on my part."
—
- Lucy, When Worlds Collide: Fandom and Male Privilege. (via seaofbadstories)
I might have reblogged this already but it’s so good I don’t care.
(via stfufauxminists)
Kyriarchy in action.
(via transstingray)
Also the study where they had women and men talking in a discussion and when women spoke around 30% of the time, men perceived them as dominating the discussion. They didn’t consider it “equal” until something like 5-10% of women talking.
(via dumbthingswhitepplsay)
Voila. A beautiful example of why fighting for equality becomes a gross exaggeration in the eyes of the oppressors.
(via curiouslycool)
"There is a dangerous myth going around this country that sexism doesn’t exist anymore, that we have gotten past it and that ‘alarmist’ feminists are an outdated nuisance. Warnings like, ‘Oh, watch out—here comes the feminazi!’ abound in our culture, as if for a woman, entitling yourself to an opinion puts you on par with followers of the Third Reich."
— Margaret Cho (via plays-with-squirrels)
