Feminism and Media

We here at FAM are very passionate about feminism & social justice their presence in our society. We're dedicated to spreading information and helping educate people about it. This is a safe place to talk about any issues that are bothering you, ask questions, give opinions, tell us how your day was, etc. However, if you come into our inbox with bigotry, you will either be ignored or mocked. We track the tag "feminismandmedia" Mobile links: FAQs | Rules | About The Mods

[feminismandmedia]

Just found out I'm going to need a root canal & it's going to cost more than I have in my bank account so that's fun. I got dental insurance but they make me wait 12 months until root canals are covered, which would be September.

Fml. I hate my teeth.

[feminismandmedia]

If you would be willing to help me out, any money I make from my business will be going straight to this.

If you're interested in anything but don't want to deal with fees or want a deal, let me know and I can sell it via PayPal.

Mercari

Special edition books & bookish items

Etsy

Stickers & decals in the pride, bookish, or cottagecore variety.

Poshmark

Clothes

PangoBooks

Regular books, usually between $1-$5 for most books

[feminismandmedia]

Bringing this back around - I got the root canal done and I'm working on paying off the procedure. Currently waiting until September until my insurance kicks in for the crown (and insurance only covers like 50% of the allowable rate, which I don't know what that is but I cover the rest).

So I'm guessing that's gonna be another $800 or so out of my pocket.

Bonus, while they were fixing that tooth they noticed the one right next to it had a massive cavity my other dentist missed :)))

New dentist put me on special prescription toothpaste too so hopefully in the future I'll have less issues.

[pyrophantom]

Hey I am begging you guys PLEASE do not fall for Justin Baldoni's smear campaigns against Blake Lively. Please do not be one of those people who are falling into the bullshit that Blake is in love with him or that she wanted the rights to the movie all to herself. I have been looking into smear campaigns for a year (specifically the exact pr team he hired). They've done this bullshit to many other women with the same formula.

Please do not keep letting this shit happen to innocent women. Do not join the dog pile. Remember "Stay Woke"? Wake up and learn about how powerful smear campaigns are. After all, it could happen to you too.

[tentacle-therapissed]

Everything I see about the Blake Lively v Justin Baldoni situation is like:

Blake: Justin made me uncomfortable with his sexual comments and advances, did not make me feel safe doing intimate scenes and joked about how he wasn’t HR trained when it was brought up to him. Other crew members saw these instances occur and are supporting me

Justin: Ok that may be true but she was really mean and bossy and tried to take over MY movie and her husband made fun of me for being a performative feminist :( also Taylor Swift was there

Everyone, for some reason: OMG Blake gives such mean girl vibes. Justin seems like such a sweet sensitive soul. Glad he was able to prove she lied!

[depsidase]

[bealittleimprobable]

This has been driving me insane.

I used to be *good* at search. It was a whole thing - I found people's "lost songs" or their unknown-source childhood stuffed toy or whatever from Google.

Now, you can't search for the exact brand/design name of something and get accurate answers. It drives me spare on Amazon - if I search for XYZ and you don't have any, or you only have 2, tell me that.

I wouldn't mind if it said "Here are 2 XYZ. Shoppers also searched for..." Instead it'll just throw a random, barely-linked pile of results and you have to wade through every single one to see if the thing you want exists.

[kimberlychapman]

THIS. For ages I used to say that I had "high Google-Fu". I could find *anything* because I knew how to use strings to enhance searches. The string commands haven't even worked for well over a year or more, far before they put in this infernal (and often wrong!) AI BS on top.

I used to be able to search for recipes and easily eliminate unwanted ingredients with a -. For example I'd look for low-carb desserts but without the zillions that use peanut butter simply by searching for something like:

low carb chocolate dessert recipe -peanut

And I'd get a slew of on-point suggestions. For some time now if you do -peanut Google ignores the - and assumes you want recipes stuffed with peanuts.

Where it's even worse now is now you get directed to sites full of bogus AI recipes that don't even make sense. But they have peanuts in them.

I used to be able to use reverse image searches to find out who made that awesome art so I could give credit in my share. They've removed that ability entirely and replaced it with Lens, which is AI BS just showing you more like what you looked for. (Rebecca Watson complained about this in her recent video about JD Vance jizz cup rumours and I apologise for that sentence but...yeah. Watson is great, go find her on Youtube and subscribe because she went into detail about how Google has become less and less useful for debunking.)

This isn't just about Google inserting shopping ads instead of what you wanted to learn about. That's bad. But the results now are just *broken*. The tools we used to have to make searches better have been removed. Google no longer wants us to find the answers we seek, but the answers they want us to have, and that's super creepy and dangerous.

And the alternatives are either using Google in the back end or have other significant barriers to use.

This sucks.

[bogleech]

Duckduckgo and all the other alternatives work this way too, now.

[revretch]

Verbatim search, guys!! Go to "Tools," and enable "Verbatim."

It's a pain in the ass, but it still works!

[dalniente]

1) yay, thank you

2) WHAT THE FUCK WHY DID THEY HIDE IT

[morphinemilkshake]

For all you Firefox users, here's an addon that forces verbatim mode to always be on:

unfuck-google – Get this Extension for 🦊 Firefox (en-US)

Download unfuck-google for Firefox. This addon forces 'Verbatim' search on Google - removing all bs personalization and localization and let

[elfwreck]

This addon forces 'Verbatim' search on Google - removing all bs personalization and localization and letting you find results for what you type, not what Google thinks is in your head.

It also forces "Sort by Date" on Google News search.

In the flood of bad search results, I had forgotten about Google News giving me 2012 articles related to high-profile drama instead of whatever happened last month that I was actually looking for.

[insert-witty-user-name-here]

Quick reminder as we head into Trump’s first week in office. We are about to see an onslaught of executive actions designed to strip of us our rights. We’ve seen this before.

Many of them won’t be legal, many of them won’t take effect immediately, and some of them will be just plain nonsense. Trump alone can’t change the law (yet anyway- that’s Congress) and there is an official government process for enacting most executive actions that works slowly.*

There will be time to fight against these orders—either by stopping them entirely, weakening them, or at least slowing them down.

The purpose of doing so many terrible things at once is to scare us. Is to intimidate us to cede more ground than we need to. Don’t let them.

Stay engaged, stay angry, stay hopeful (or spiteful- me tbh), and—most importantly—stay strategic. Find an organization you trust, follow them, and take action when they ask you to.

(Side note- pick just a few issues to care deeply about and only follow a few organizations you trust. Don’t try to solve everything all the time or consume every piece of news. You WILL burn yourself out and that’s not helpful for anyone. Trust me, speaking from experience. Staying 15% engaged is better than 120% for three months and then 0%).

What we’re seeing right now is a backlash to decades of progress—a dying (and by extension dangerous I’m not gonna lie) breath of those in power desperate to maintain control. They wouldn’t be trying to squash us if there wasn’t something to squash.

TL;DR- there’s gonna be a lot of bad stuff in the news today. Don’t give into panic. There will be time to fight most of it. Stay engaged.

*Unfortunately, there will be some actions the President can control on his own and will take effect immediately. ICE Raids being one of them. Here’s a Know Your Rights factsheet. To learn more and stay informed on this issue, recommend following National Immigration Law Center, CASA, Immigrant Defense Project.

[goldeaglefire1]

so the tiktok ban was literally just propaganda for the trump administration. like. we all agree with that right. this is just laughably transparent. the ban wasn't even 24 hours. not even a whole day. to quote my infinitely funnier mutual from Discord, "Misha Collins was bisexual longer than TikTok was banned"

[renthony]

I grit my teeth and read the entire executive order regarding trans people, and I just want to take the opportunity to remind folks not to forget intersex people. One of the rescinded documents is “Supporting Intersex Students: A Resource for Students, Families, and Educators," and there is a huge emphasis on legally enshrining "only two sexes."

Yes, this affects trans people, but with the way intersex voices often get ignored in trans spaces, I just want to remind folks not to shut us out. Don't forget us. Don't keep talking over us. Don't act like we aren't on the front lines. Don't act like this is just about you. Please.

[uncle-fruity]

As a perisex trans person, I would even go so far as to say that intersex people shouldn't just be included, but need to be actively centered in this conversation. Because the legal enshrinement of two sexes might coincide with transphobia or be intended to push transphobic legal standards, but it is directly going to challenge intersex people's fundamental right to exist. It affects all of us, but intersex folks have even fewer social & legal resources and even less understanding from the broader public, and they need us to care about them and help amplify their voices.

[renthony]

Oh, yeah, I 100% agree. Problem is that the last time I said something as direct as that, I lost my green flag in Shinigami Eyes and had to block multiple people who wouldn't stop calling me a transmisogynist bigot. Sigh.

[kosmogrl]

[cardassiangoodreads]

This is apparently a hotter take than I thought but: hating on lawyers as a profession, calling them inherently dishonest etc. is politically reactionary. It discourages defendants from seeking legal counsel, puts forth the idea that it’s inherently suspicious to insist on seeing a lawyer before you answer police questioning (your constitutional right!) etc. which ultimately just benefits the state in making it easier for them to convict you. This is one of those things that “progressives” who were raised conservative often don’t realize is one of the parts of their parents’ worldview they should question more, but they should. Not only are lawyers not The Problem with “our system,” but having someone who is educated in the law whose job is to represent your interests in court — getting one regardless of your ability to pay, even! — is in fact one of the best parts of it.

[johanna-swann]

I hate how all the crime shows do this as well. "Urgh, lawyers are the worst", "I hate lawyers", "People are dying and our witness is wasting time with a lawyer." It's copaganda! Fuck that. You have a right to a lawyer for a reason, use your rights!

[carolxdanvers]

You know who helped me when my landlord was doing some super illegal shit regarding the fair housing act? A lawyer.

You know who helped my brother when his boss stole his wages and made him work outside of the legally acceptable hours for a minor? A lawyer.

[homoidiotic]

ameircans talking about red note like they have never spoken to anyone from another country ever about anything

[humblecabbagemerchant]

A lot of us haven't (or at least don't realize we are when talking to people online if it's not obvious or explicitly stated)

[pitbolshevik]

that's embarassing why would you admit that

[pain-in-the-riri]

as a Certified Immigrant(tm) from Old Country to America I would like to say: DO NOT SHAME PEOPLE now that they're actually doing it!

It's GOOD that Americans are having these moments of realization that they've been living in a bubble, that they've been lied to, that life in other countries is not just people living in huts and being oppressed by communists!

I understand the impulse but I just want you to think: Do you want to discourage the open communication that has been happening on Red Note or encourage it?

I've seen the comments and vids on Red Note, everyone is being vulnerable with each other, they're being kind, they're admitting to embarrassing failures in their education and in their lived experiences. (The Americans and Chinese users, both, actually!) They should be allowed to do so! Admitting that there is a problem is the first step to solving that problem!

And the best way to grow empathy and camaraderie between people with different lived experiences is to meet each other, speak to each other, be vulnerable with each other. THIS is how we defeat fascism, not snide remarks.

Thank you, ilu, don't discourage people's growth by being a cynic and a snark.

[falconwhitaker]

You know those posts about teens who spend all their time in their rooms? Then they come out to join the family, only to get a bunch of “About time you came out of that room!” snark, thus discouraging them from doing it in future?

The Americans on RedNote are the teens here. Stop being the parents at them, please.

[socialistexan]

To reiterate:

Trump's transphobic Executive Orders regarding healthcare and Federal documents are currently unenforceable and are not current actionable policy of the Federal government.

Do not despair.

Do not panic.

And most importantly: do not comply in advance.

Staying alive is a radical act as a trans person in Trump's America.

[this-dude-over-here]

in light of Trump's inauguration speech declaring multiple national emergencies that require him to take god-knows-what executive actions immediately, I'd like to remember this chapter of "On Tyranny" by Timothy Snyder:

[thoughtportal]

[odinsblog]

Move along, nothing to see here. Just blizzards in Florida + record snowfall in Mississippi and Louisiana + climate change.

[fiyerotigelar]

Reminder for when he “saves” it. He was the one who wanted this, and now he gets to be the hero and win favour with young constituents. Don’t give him the credit for fixing his own problem.

[exhuastedpigeon]

Having "a lot" of followers on tumblr is funny because probably 80% of them are ghost blogs who haven't been on here in like a decade.

It's like, no no, those aren't my followers, that's a graveyard! I'm the caretaker of a thousands of tombs. I love them, but they've been dead for seven years.

[iamladyloin]

But on rare occasions the corpse likes to go for a stroll

[bloodbending]

can’t believe tiktok is actually getting banned, twitter is infested with bots and brainworm-infested musk bots, facebook is king of QAnon, instagram caught the plague from facebook and is dying a slow death in real time… and as the dust settles… only Miss Tumblr is left standing… failing upwards once again

[curliestofcrowns]

where's that speed skating gif

[scarygodmother]