Buy Her Candy

"It’s a pretty tough thing to do, for a woman. You would see some awful things."

Sat, 11 May 2013 12:57:00 +1000

““It’s a pretty tough thing to do, for a woman. You would see some awful things.””

- Man at a group dinner, when discussing journalism (via saidtoladyjournos)

Ugh.

Photo

Fri, 10 May 2013 12:34:43 +1000

cankerbloxxom: After Dark: Canberra Time-lapse I don’t...

Thu, 09 May 2013 21:47:30 +1000

cankerbloxxom:

After Dark: Canberra Time-lapse

I don’t understand how there are people who don’t like Canberra.

Laura Jane Grace (recorded as Tom Gabel) - ‘Conceptual...

Thu, 09 May 2013 20:30:35 +1000

Laura Jane Grace (recorded as Tom Gabel) - ‘Conceptual Paths’

you don’t owe anything to anyone

Photo

Thu, 09 May 2013 17:09:10 +1000

"Mamihlapinatapai: A look shared by two people, each wishing that the other will initiate something..."

Thu, 09 May 2013 17:04:16 +1000

“

Mamihlapinatapai:

A look shared by two people, each wishing that the other will initiate something that both desire but which neither one wants to start.

”

- World’s Most succinct Word (via kateoplis)

April 25, 2013. Two victims amid the rubble of a garment factory...

Thu, 09 May 2013 10:00:54 +1000

April 25, 2013. Two victims amid the rubble of a garment factory building collapse in Savar, near Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Many powerful photographs have been made in the aftermath of the devastating collapse of a garment factory on the outskirts of Dhaka, Bangladesh. But one photo, by Bangladeshi photographer Taslima Akhter, has emerged as the most heart wrenching, capturing an entire country’s grief in a single image.

Shahidul Alam, Bangladeshi photographer, writer and founder of Pathshala, the South Asian Institute of Photography, said of the photo: “This image, while deeply disturbing, is also hauntingly beautiful. An embrace in death, its tenderness rises above the rubble to touch us where we are most vulnerable. By making it personal, it refuses to let go. This is a photograph that will torment us in our dreams. Quietly it tells us. Never again.”

(via A Final Embrace: The Most Haunting Photograph from Bangladesh - LightBox)

Jezebel: Female 'Purity' Is Bullshit

Wed, 08 May 2013 21:56:29 +1000

Jezebel: Female 'Purity' Is Bullshit:

If you spend any time at all browsing body-positive Tumblrs, you’ll notice that they’re constantly invaded by men determined to insert their big, throbbing, veiny opinions into women’s personal spaces. Queer women, fat women, women in pain, women trying to practice very basic self-care and sexual reclamation—they’re all subject to unsolicited male assessment and exploited for male arousal. Women can’t even escape sexualization in the context of attempting to make a statement about their own sexualization. It’s relentless.

I got catcalled outside the coffee shop in the middle of writing this article—my brain mired in thoughts about purity and sexualization and objectification. A dude drove by in a car, leaned out the window, and yelled “EXCELLEEEEEENT!” (I will concede that it’s possible he just mistook me for Rufus.) So what is it—am I supposed to be modest and pure, or do I become a sexual commodity as soon as I step outside in a belted muumuu and janky flip-flops? Well, the two aren’t nearly as incongruous as they appear. A catcall is entirely about reminding you that you are not yours. The purity myth is entirely about reminding you that you are not yours. The fetishization of female purity in a world where catcalls are an acceptable form of communication telegraphs one thing very clearly:

“Women, stop sexualizing yourselves—that’s our job, and you’re taking all the fun out of it.”

The sexualization of women is only appealing if it’s nonconsensual. Otherwise it’s “sluttiness,” and sluttiness is agency and agency is threatening and so, therefore, sluttiness must equal disposability.

shortkebab: tastefullyoffensive: [via] please let this happen...

Wed, 08 May 2013 21:48:20 +1000

shortkebab:

tastefullyoffensive:

[via]

please let this happen to me right now.

My future.

shortkebab: Oscar-Winning Django Unchained, by Quentin...

Wed, 08 May 2013 11:12:28 +1000

shortkebab:

Oscar-Winning Django Unchained, by Quentin Tarantino.

Wonderful.

Bloodblod BANG.

Tony unleashes his misogynist side with 'women of calibre' comments

Tue, 07 May 2013 22:04:52 +1000

Tony unleashes his misogynist side with 'women of calibre' comments:

Labor has reignited the misogyny war, with senior government ministers leaping on comments by Tony Abbott that women of the “calibre” of a university education should be encouraged to have a family and a career.

… “We do not educate women to higher degree level to deny them a career,” Mr Abbott said.

“If we want women of that calibre to have families, and we should, well we have to give them a fair dinkum chance to do so. That is what this scheme of paid parental leave is all about.”

Ms Plibersek said Mr Abbott’s comments were an “insight into his values: his lack of respect for low income workers, and women in particular”.

“Who exactly does Mr Abbott think are ‘women of calibre’?” she said.

“What does he think about women who are child care workers, nurses and community sector workers? Are they of lower calibre than women who are law firm partners?”

Senator Wong waded into the debate on Twitter, asking: “Am wondering who Abbott thinks the women not of calibre are? A woman’s calibre is not determined by what she earns”.

theatlanticvideo: Don’t Blame the Sea: Fishing After the...

Tue, 07 May 2013 12:41:53 +1000

theatlanticvideo:

Don’t Blame the Sea: Fishing After the Tsunami

A beautiful documentary about one family’s determination to survive on the coast of Sri Lanka.

"Life is like a roller coaster; it is going to have beautiful moments but it is going to be real..."

Tue, 07 May 2013 11:34:29 +1000

“Life is like a roller coaster; it is going to have beautiful moments but it is going to be real fucked up, too.”

- Patti Smith

Autostraddle — Fat Queer Tells All: On Fatness and Gender Flatness

Tue, 07 May 2013 11:31:06 +1000

Autostraddle — Fat Queer Tells All: On Fatness and Gender Flatness:

I do not know why fatness flattens gender expression, but I think it has to do with the predetermined expectations of bodies. Culturally, we understand androgyny to be the ability to shift between gender expressions with a facility that highlights their outlandishness, and sometimes their closeness to each other. Learning to embrace the hyperbole of my own body has liberated my gender expression, but also made it more difficult for others to understand. There is little precedent for fat androgyny. Generally our androgynous icons are svelte and lacking in secondary sex characteristics. David Bowie, Tilda Swinton, Katherine Hepburn; these small-bodied, predominately white figures of androgyny have created an aesthetic with little room for deviation. This means that for those of us with bodies that do not conform to traditional standards of androgyny, we are often misread and misunderstood, even in queer spaces. Every day I struggle to present my fat queer body in a way that is intentional and binary-defiant. Sometimes this means I don’t get what I want, Sometimes this means I am misunderstood, sometimes this means I am put into situations that make me feel uncomfortable and challenged. I try to embrace all of these instances for their learning and teaching value.

I went to the same monthly queer party twice wearing two different outfits. Once I wore a skirt, once I wore pants and a button down. I was treated like two completely different people. The first time I went to this party while I was wearing a skirt, someone asked me to go out for a drink. Things didn’t work out and I kind of hoped we wouldn’t run into each other again (an unrealistic expectation in the tiny queer community.) When I saw them again at the party the next month, they grabbed my wrist and snarled “nice pants” at me, as if I had somehow personally offended them by wearing pants. When I wore a skirt, I danced alone or with my friends. When I wore pants, I was given a type of attention that made me uncomfortable. I knew it was because I was being read as “butch.” People treated me differently, gave me space on the dance floor differently, flirted with me differently. It felt somehow insincere, although I was just as comfortable wearing one outfit as the other. I felt I could not live up to the expectations of masculinity that were being imposed onto my body in that space when I projected my femininity non-traditionally. A stranger sneak-attacked me and began to wind her butt in my face. Her male friend slapped my shoulder and said “get it.” I was completely thrown off and angry. What about me allows people to assume that I want to “get” anything? Is it not you who is trying to “get” something from me? What about my body and my presentation allows people to assume that I am the one “getting” and not the person who is shaking their butt in my face without my permission? These are questions that I still do not have any answers to. Instead of confronting the booty-winder, I sneaked off into the crowd to go find my friends. I made it a point to dance with my hips like a girl and shake my own ass in the face of no one, because I have an ass, even in pants, just as I have wide shoulders in a skirt. Nobody is owed an explanation.

I have so much to say on this topic, and on gender expression in queer communities in general, but let’s just start here.

"What a small word we use for an idea so immense and powerful it has altered the flow of history,..."

Tue, 07 May 2013 11:20:46 +1000

“What a small word we use for an idea so immense and powerful it has altered the flow of history, calmed monsters, kindled works of art, cheered the forlorn, turned tough guys to mush, consoled the enslaved, driven strong women mad, glorified the humble, fueled national scandals, bankrupted robber barons, and made mincemeat of kings. How can love’s spaciousness be conveyed in the narrow confines of one syllable? If we search for the source of the word, we find a history vague and confusing, stretching back to the Sanskrit lubhyati (“he desires”). I’m sure the etymology rambles back much farther than that, to a one-syllable word heavy as a heartbeat. Love is an ancient delirium, a desire older than civilization, with taproots stretching deep into dark and mysterious days.”

“We think of it as a sort of traffic accident of the heart. It is an emotion that scares us more than cruelty, more than violence, more than hatred. We allow ourselves to be foiled by the vagueness of the word. After all, love requires the utmost vulnerability. We equip someone with freshly sharpened knives; strip naked; then invite him to stand close. What could be scarier?”

- Diane Ackerman on the necessary vulnerability and uncontrolled surrender that true love requires (via kateoplis)

Mauricia Horta Fuentes, 36, stands for a portrait along the...

Tue, 07 May 2013 11:11:51 +1000

Mauricia Horta Fuentes, 36, stands for a portrait along the fence marking the US-Mexico border in Tijuana, Mexico, on June 23, 2012. Fuentes, who lived and worked in the United States for years, drove up to a roadblock in Escondido, California, in September, 2008, on her way to pick up kids from school. Since then she has been cut off from her children, and has been forced to create a new life in her old country. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull) (via On the Border - In Focus - The Atlantic)

A section of the controversial US-Mexico border fence expansion...

Tue, 07 May 2013 11:10:43 +1000

A section of the controversial US-Mexico border fence expansion project crosses previously pristine desert sands at sunrise on March 14, 2009, between Yuma, Arizona and Calexico, California. The barrier stands 15 feet tall and sits on top of the sand so it can lifted by a machine and repositioned whenever the migrating desert dunes begin to bury it. The almost seven miles of floating fence cost about $6 million per mile to build. (David McNew/Getty Images) (via On the Border - In Focus - The Atlantic)

About 54 percent of graduate students report feeling so depressed they have “a hard time functioning,” as opposed to ten percent of the general population.

Tue, 07 May 2013 11:07:25 +1000

About 54 percent of graduate students report feeling so depressed they have “a hard time functioning,” as opposed to ten percent of the general population.:

thenoobyorker:

Something to consider for the future.

Another study that will be not at all surprising to anyone who has ever been a graduate student.

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

Mon, 06 May 2013 12:09:00 +1000

“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 (via albinwonderland)

Laura Jane Grace (recorded as Tom Gabel) - ‘Random...

Sun, 05 May 2013 12:26:44 +1000

Laura Jane Grace (recorded as Tom Gabel) - ‘Random Hearts’

breathe in the CFCs / we’re in this together / random hearts that beat for each other / random hearts in a cruel cruel world

Today’s jam.