The Bee

[ettibee]

My copy of Joyce's *A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man* has traveled long and far before it reached me. I'll be sure to keep it moving. #usedbooks #joyce @penguinukbooks (at Jerusalem, Israel)

[ettibee]

Last night I dressed as a version of myself. One who would wear this outfit with eyeliner. #happyhalloween

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Adventuring in #mitzperamon

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Photogenic ibex in #mitzperamon

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#prisma #candy filter on my outfit for a lovely picnic this weekend.

[ettibee]

In a way, the world-view of the Party imposed itself most successfully on people incapable of understanding it. They could be made to accept the most flagrant violations of reality, because they never fully grasped the enormity of what was demanded of them, and were not sufficiently interested in public events to notice what was happening. By lack of understanding they remained sane. They simply swallowed everything, and what they swallowed did them no harm, because it left no residue behind...

George Orwell, 1984

[playerprophet]

Why we're terrified of fanfiction

We love hating the things teenage girls love. Fandom is just one example.

Stands up on soapbox, holds up this article like it’s the opening of the Lion King.

[whovianfeminism]

Y’all should read this because it is FIRE, but also because a post from the Time Lady Project was linked in this!

[crowfoot]

Historically, whenever young women are interested in a form of media, we like to tell them it is bad for them and that they are bad for liking it — unless the media goes mainstream, in which case it becomes no longer feminine and hence okay. Novels are dangerous and cause insanity, until they become classics worthy of being studied in college. Beatlemania is the province of “the dull, the idle, the failures,“ until the Beatles become a band that everyone loves.

Young women are so attacked for loving the media they love that it is a radical act for a young woman to love something unashamedly. And transformative fandom is the most radical act of all, because it reverses that “lady thing to respectable thing” process.

Emphasis added. It’s so good- go read the whole thing.

[gutterballgt]

That part where the old preacher went on and on about how he saw the light of goodness and sanity die in the eyes of a young girl who was reading really gets me. Because one of the first things anyone who wants control of the masses does is limit their input from outside. Why?

Because they can’t have people getting IDEAS. Reading, especially, is dangerous because you might actually LEARN something from what you read. Something that might change your mind. Something that might give you the silly idea that you have a right to think for yourself.

It doesn’t at all surprise me that a religious leader immediately spoke out about a woman – a GIRL – reading. Learning. God forbid, THINKING. Getting IDEAS.

Oh, no… TELLING OTHER WOMEN.

Because if someone reads something that enlightens them, imagine how many other minds they can touch WARP with their crazy IDEAS.

So the safest thing has always been to limit input. To limit teaching. You gotta keep the repressed stupid so they don’t go getting ideas and spreading them and taking over everything and ruining it.

You want to run a fascist dictatorship? Burn all the books.

You want to keep your slaves in line? Beat/kill them any time you catch them trying to educate themselves.

You want to keep your bullshit religious recruits believing the ludicrous lies you feed them? Deny them internet access and regular education and tell them to cut off contact with anyone who dares to leave the cult.

You want to keep women in their place? Demonize anything they love that you don’t sanction as “appropriate” for their delicate, vapid sensibilities.

Limit the input. They’ll never even know they’re oppressed if they don’t know what they’re missing.

[xero-sky]

It’s easier for them to ridicule and police the interests of teenage girls because most of them are minors. 

It’s policing the interests of adult women that becomes a problem.  Therefore lets define everything women like as belonging to teenagers – fashion, fandom, music, tv, movies, internet, etc etc etc – so we can belittle it.  How many adult women will usually admit to being huge fans of something, of cosplaying, of writing fanfiction, when they’re in the company of strangers or business acquaintances?  It’s okay for a man to be a rabid sports fan, and no one will really hold it against him, but the woman who’s a rabid fan of something?  Dear Jesus, what’s wrong with HER?  Better to nip all this in the bud.

[sarahseeandersen]

[tastefullyoffensive]

by Sarah Andersen

[antlerology-deactivated20260312]

Just a few of the stories my great aunt told me about women in the 60s:

1) A woman she worked with at the hospital who had a baby with one of the ambulance drivers. When work found out they fired her (he kept his job). She tried to self-abort with a knitting needle.

2) The sister of one of her neighbours who wasn’t able to rent a room because she was a ‘fallen woman’.

3) A girl who got sent to a convent house and scrubbed floors until the day she gave birth. Her baby was given up for adoption without her consent.

4) Girls who had babies with priests.

5) Women who were on their fifth, sixth, seventh child, who had been pregnant for the best part of a decade, begging for sterilisation because their husbands wouldn’t wear a condom.

Banning abortion has never ever stopped it from happening. It’s just meant more stigma, more prejudice, more risks and more deaths.

[daisydeadhead]

In 1962, my mother was going thru a divorce, got pregnant and knew this fact would be used to deny her divorce (they used to do that, in case you didn’t know).  

My mother was given a “shot”; she lived 3 blocks from the doctor.   He never told her what it was, likely an “overdose” of progesterone, which is how they used to “induce menstruation” in a hurry (i.e. abortion off the books).  She was about 7-8 weeks by her estimation.  He said, GO STRAIGHT HOME, go to bed and stay there.  She walked fast, but nearly collapsed at the curb and my grandmother went out to guide her into the house.  She went to bed, stayed there and bled steadily and heavily for 3-4 days.  She said it was like being very very sick, headaches, nausea, vomiting… and then, gone.  

She never let me forget this and took me to my first NARAL meeting when I was 15 yrs old.  And here I am today, in my 50s–and I still remember my grandmother’s scary account; my mother swaying, literally, at the curb, and nearly falling, under the strength of that one shot.  

How did she get the doctor to do it? She told him, “If you don’t, I will do it myself”–and if you knew my mother, you knew she meant it.  She would have.  After all, lots of women she knew had.  

This is what they want to take us all back to, the fucking middle ages.  Please remember.  

[ettibee]

(via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nck6BZga7TQ)

[jasonapham]

[mortallyfoolish-blog]

Elle Woods was hollering back before the movement. This is why i love this movie. It’s so progressive. Elle is a femme feminist who comes by it the hard way. She doesn’t change for the bookish people, the elitists, or for the feminists. She just does what she needs to do, and what she wants, even when at first it was chasing a boy. Then the movie drops the romance. IT DROPS THE ROMANCE. chick flicks don’t do that. Emmett asking her out is a footnote at the very end. And this whole time, she is classy, and lady like, and has pride in herself and her work. She’ll go to a costume party as a playboy bunny, but like hell will she sleep with her professor for an internship. Elle is my feminist role model

[whathappenedtocharlotte]

Same.

[baby-fish-mouth-deactivated2017]

Elle Woods 4ever

[ramoorebooks-deactivated2024011]

I remember listening to my DAD defend Legally Blonde. An uncle was saying “Oh look, it’s that stupid movie again.” as he flipped through the channels. My dad responded with “Oh yeah, that movie where the blonde girl with great grades works really hard to get into pre-law, studies hard and proves herself to her peers and bosses while maintaining her integrity and not sleeping with her boss? What a terrible message to send girls.”

Also, I love this movie because Reese Witherspoon. 

[teiledesganzen]

And don’t forget that she has serious female friends and wins the case by way of her specialist knowledge of so-called “feminine things” that no one else takes seriously enough to even bother with.

The movie also passes the Bechdel test.

[bookshop]

LET’S NOT FORGET that even though it starts with a situation where two girls are rivals for the same guy, they BOTH choose to ignore the social codes (and hollywood bylaws) that tell them they should be cat-fighting and trying to one-up each other, and instead they realize that they make good working partners and better friends and screw rivalry, AND ALSO HAVE EACH OTHER’S BACKS RE: WORKPLACE SEXUAL HARASSMENT. And that it portrays sororities as places where women can learn to work together and respect each other and help each other out, which sets the stage for the way Elle treats everyone she meets for the rest of the movie. OH AND IT HAS A FAT SIDE CHARACTER WHO OVERCOMES EMOTIONAL ABUSE, IS NEVER FAT-SHAMED OR USED AS THE BRUNT OF A FAT JOKE, AND LANDS THE HOTTEST MAN IN THE ENTIRE FILM. 

[ettibee]

Love this.

[jasonapham]

[mortallyfoolish-blog]

Elle Woods was hollering back before the movement. This is why i love this movie. It’s so progressive. Elle is a femme feminist who comes by it the hard way. She doesn’t change for the bookish people, the elitists, or for the feminists. She just does what she needs to do, and what she wants, even when at first it was chasing a boy. Then the movie drops the romance. IT DROPS THE ROMANCE. chick flicks don’t do that. Emmett asking her out is a footnote at the very end. And this whole time, she is classy, and lady like, and has pride in herself and her work. She’ll go to a costume party as a playboy bunny, but like hell will she sleep with her professor for an internship. Elle is my feminist role model

[whathappenedtocharlotte]

Same.

[baby-fish-mouth-deactivated2017]

Elle Woods 4ever

[ramoorebooks-deactivated2024011]

I remember listening to my DAD defend Legally Blonde. An uncle was saying “Oh look, it’s that stupid movie again.” as he flipped through the channels. My dad responded with “Oh yeah, that movie where the blonde girl with great grades works really hard to get into pre-law, studies hard and proves herself to her peers and bosses while maintaining her integrity and not sleeping with her boss? What a terrible message to send girls.”

Also, I love this movie because Reese Witherspoon. 

[teiledesganzen]

And don’t forget that she has serious female friends and wins the case by way of her specialist knowledge of so-called “feminine things” that no one else takes seriously enough to even bother with.

The movie also passes the Bechdel test.

[bookshop]

LET’S NOT FORGET that even though it starts with a situation where two girls are rivals for the same guy, they BOTH choose to ignore the social codes (and hollywood bylaws) that tell them they should be cat-fighting and trying to one-up each other, and instead they realize that they make good working partners and better friends and screw rivalry, AND ALSO HAVE EACH OTHER’S BACKS RE: WORKPLACE SEXUAL HARASSMENT. And that it portrays sororities as places where women can learn to work together and respect each other and help each other out, which sets the stage for the way Elle treats everyone she meets for the rest of the movie. OH AND IT HAS A FAT SIDE CHARACTER WHO OVERCOMES EMOTIONAL ABUSE, IS NEVER FAT-SHAMED OR USED AS THE BRUNT OF A FAT JOKE, AND LANDS THE HOTTEST MAN IN THE ENTIRE FILM. 

[simonteenca]

Walking into a bookstore like...

[ettibee]

I had the sensation, common enough, at least to me, that I was moving out of time, that the way, narrow and dark-dappled, stretched away indifferently before and behind, and they I was who I had been and what I would become - all at once, all wound in one, and I moved onward indifferently, since it was all one, whether I came or went, or remained still.

A.S. Byatt, Possession

[fumbling-towards-ecstasy001-dea]

“Men don’t age better than women, they’re just allowed to age.”

Carrie Fisher (via phd-student-ttu)

[ettibee]

#winter is orange season in #Jerusalem

[ettibee]

Early winter in #Jerusalem is beautiful. #nofilter (at Polis - The Jerusalem Institute of Languages and Humanities)