....

....

[theterpiel]

If Arcane writers wrote Attack on Titan:

- After his devastating attack on Marley and the battle in Liberio, Eren suddenly ditches his desire for revenge. He adopts Falco and the two live in a hideout together. His friends ask him why he has suddenly become so passive after committing that huge attack. "Eren is dead" he says, and continues playing with bugs with Falco.

- In Season 4, Hange is revealed as the true villain of the show after she goes too far experimenting with Titans. Since mad scientist Hange loves Titans so much, she now thinks that everyone should turn into Titans. She plans to steal the Founding Titan to ascend to godhood and forcefully turn everyone into a hivemind Titan army. Eldians and Marleyans forgive each other and join forces to take down Hange.

- Two episodes before the finale, School Castes AU is made canon and given an entire episode's worth of screentime within the actual show. Mikasa travels to the alternate universe by quantum leaping into the body of her alternate self where she has a romance with Normie Eren.

- Grisha Jaeger's remains were found in the woods after Eren ate him. From his remains, he is revived into a werewolf-Titan hybrid monster. Eren and Zeke join forces to look for him. He attacks them but luckily recognizes them at the last minute. They have a family group hug which Falco joins (Falco is there). Later they take him to Hange to be cured but things go south and Grisha goes crazy again. Falco blows himself up to kill Grisha and save Eren. Unfortunately, Grisha survives. No one mentions Falco again. Eren sacrifices himself by killing Grisha to save Zeke.

- Gabi never has an onscreen arc of realizing she is being used as an indoctrinated tool against her own people. She fights Hange's Titan army while wearing the Warrior Unit uniform. Many Eldian civilians are also convinced to help Marley defeat Hange and they are all given Marleyan soldier uniforms during the final battle. At the end of the show, Gabi is still happily a Warrior soldier. "Are you still in this fight, Gabi?" asks a Marleyan elite. "I am the dirt under your nails," she replies. "Nothing's gonna clean me out."

[ppushable]

daily jean 85

[jikuere]

⚾️ Where are my glasses?

[winepeach]

https://instagram.com/p/BPXwEM0jtcf/

[columbointeriors]

Frozen Daiquiri (Imbibing): Lovely But Lethal, 1973

[yayfeminism]

We need to talk about the online radicalisation of young, white men | Abi Wilkinson

With the appointment of Breitbart News’s chair to Trump’s staff we need to be clear about the links between misogyny, racism and neofascism on alt-right websites

“When we fret about young people leaving western countries and going to fight with Isis, it’s common to focus on the role of the internet in their political radicalisation. It’s time we discussed the radicalisation of angry, young white men in a similar way. The manosphere gave us Elliot Rodger. He was a regular on the forum “PUAhate” – populated by bitter men who had tried the techniques advocated by so-called “pick-up artists” to attract women and failed.

Reading through the posting history of individual aliases, it’s possible to chart their progress from vague dissatisfaction, and desire for social status and sexual success, to full-blown adherence to a cohesive ideology of white supremacy and misogyny. Neofascists treat these websites as recruitment grounds. They find angry, frustrated young men and groom them in their own image. Yet there’s no Prevent equivalent to try to stamp this out.”

[quoms]

you know why american liberal politicians are so fucking sinister? because they’re actually competent at their jobs. they’re technocrats. a politician like hillary clinton gets her hands on the levers of power and she actually knows how to use them in a way other than sending everything full-throttle into screaming oblivion

the republicans, you see, prefer optics. they tend to be satisfied with inflammatory rhetoric backed up by only the most hamfisted applications of state-backed violence (they never really liked the federal government anyway, and they don’t have a taste for its nuance). they’re good at getting to be in charge - for half a century now they’ve been continuously one step ahead of the democrats in manipulating the masses - but once they’re there they act like looters, not fiduciaries

it took nixon to propose the idea of the drug war. it took reagan to turn it into a bonafide national hysteria. but through the 1980s this was primarily a phenomenon of mass psychology, not a hegemonic new system of racial oppression with a firm base of material exploitation. it took clintonian political maneuvering to actually build the new prisons required to hold a significant fraction of the black and latino population. it took clintonian bipartisanship to actually put military-grade weapons in the hands of police. bill clinton’s major accomplishment was taking a blitz offensive launched against people of color by american conservatives and making its gains sustainable. this is something competent, consolidating leaders do. in america, liberal politicians are those leaders

obama, by the same token, acted as a consolidator for all the advances of capital during the bush years. bush spoke of an eternal ‘war on terror’, but could only make clumsy, brute-force efforts at getting us there - the strategy of making it a literal war requiring the commitment of hundreds of thousands of troops was falling apart long before he was out of office. it took obama - a technocrat, a bipartisan, a political maneuverer par excellence - to bring to reality the vision of a forever war constituted by drone warfare and black-ops ‘surgical strikes’

the contemporary wave of anti-immigrant sentiment in the united states arose in earnest under bush (although it should be noted, of course, that much of the actual influx was prompted by clinton’s free-trade policies). bush and his advisors exploited and amplified anti-immigrant rhetoric for political gain, but their proposed answers to the ‘problem’ had all the crude inadequacy typical of american conservative policies: build a wall (largely an excuse to funnel tax money to contractors) and hire tens of thousand of border-patrol agents. competent politician barack obama entered office, inherited a crumbling and unsustainable border infrastructure, and set about elevating anti-immigrant persecution to the status of hegemony. it is obama’s competence that allowed him to deport more immigrants than any other president in history. it is obama’s competence that allowed him to leverage clintonian mass incarceration to turn ICE into an effective and deeply entrenched institution

to describe hillary as a ‘competent’ or ‘qualified’ presidential candidate is firmly the most damning thing you can say about her

[fomysquad]

How do we ensure public safety w/o police? Check out this list on alternatives to policing

Alternatives to Police (PDF) by Rose City Copwatch (2008)

Alternatives to the Police by Evan Dent, Molly Korab, and Farid Rener

The Avant-garde of White Supremacy by Steve Martinot and Jared Sexton

Broken Windows is On Hiatus: Community Interventions We Can Enact Now for Real Justice by Hannah Hodson

Can We Build an Anti-Policing Movement that Isn’t Anti-Police? by Radical Faggot

Citizens, Cops, and Power: Recognizing the Limits of Community by Steve Herbert

Feeling for the Edge of your Imagination: finding ways not to call the police

A New Year’s Resolution: Don’t Call the Police by Mike Ludwig

Not Calling the Police by Prison Culture

Origins of the Police by David Whitehouse

The Other Side of the COIN (PDF) by Kristian Williams.

Policing is a Dirty Job, But Nobody’s Gotta Do It: 6 Ideas for a Cop-Free World by Jose Martin

Policing Slaves Since the 1600s by Auandaru Nirhan

The Shanti Sena ‘peace center’ and the non-policing of an anarchist temporary autonomous zone: Rainbow Family peacekeeping strategies (PDF) by Michael Niman

Stop Kidding Yourself: The Police Were Created to Control Working Class and Poor People by Sam Mitrani

We Don’t Just Need Nicer Cops. We Need Fewer Cops by Alex S. Vitale

What Does It Mean to Be Anti-Police? by Alex S. Vitale

Where abolition meets action: women organizing against gender violence (PDF) by Vikki Law

[class-struggle-anarchism]

Capitalism will not automate itself out of existence. It will not eliminate the workforce, and it will not even try. What it will do is create a deskilled workforce, ever more dependent on capital for the ability to produce, and create a divided workforce, that does not share a common proletarian consciousness, thus diffusing its class power. And, for when and where discontent does bubble up, it will automate the deadly force required to repress uprisings. The brutal Enforcement Droid is much more viable than the pleasant robot servant.  A system that directs production towards the creation of exchange value has many motivations to create control, since capture of scarce resources is at the heart of the formation of exchange value, however, it has no motivation to create general abundance. Only a workers society, where people produced and shared as equals would be interested in achieving abundance, since more wealth and less work would be enjoyed by all. Capital doesn’t automate, it entangles. Its technological apparatus does not free labour, it encloses, envelopes human life and labour within it – invading, harassing and extracting. The tremendous wealth-producing power of technology can only truly reduce toil when the wage system is abolished, and when classes are eliminated. Only then could the inovation and determination of people be genuinely applied to using technology to reduce work and increase leisure, until then it is only a sci-fi mirage.

Dmytri Kleiner, Capital doesn’t automate, it entangles. (via class-struggle-anarchism)

[eearth-deactivated20180601]

The Year 2028

Since the introduction of Pokemon Go, people have never been healthier. Everyone knows everyone in their neighbourhoods. Loneliness is an archaic concept. All national borders have been erased so players can search for pokemon unrestricted. There is no war. There is no suffering. The planet is finally at peace. 

[luigita3]

Could it be?

[mxke-y0u-mxne]

[allthecanadianpolitics]

5 Ways ‘Feminist’ Justin Trudeau ‘Talks Left, Governs Right’

The youthful, popular prime minister represents a refreshing change from Harper-era conservatism—but how progressive is he really?

With a deeply unpopular predecessor, a storied last name, and a youthful countenance, the Liberal Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has the kind of profile that most any politician would kill for, a year into office. And his record of accomplishments so far, including legalizing marijuana (not legalized yet), marching as the first sitting PM in a Pride parade, and commiting to resettling 50,000 refugees this year, have only burnished his reputation as a progressive.

But all that glitters is not gold. The self-proclaimed feminist leader may have brought together disaffected conservatives and center-left progressives, but here are five reasons why he’s not as progressive as the rhetoric makes him out to be.

1. As the 23rd White Ruler of Colonial Canada, He’s Falling Short on His Promises to Indigenous People

So hungry for change were Canada’s Indigenous people that after 10 years of the conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper, that 2015 saw a surge in the number of native people who went to the polls for the first time. But despite Trudeau’s persistent talk of nation-to-nation relationships, his government is maintaining the Bantustan model of self-government, isolation and confinement of Aboriginal title through what are known as modern treaties.

This 21-year-old federal “self-government” policy allows all provinces in the country a veto in any negotiations with Indigenous people on issues that affect provincial jurisdiction or laws.There is also no real power sharing within the self-government negotiation process, allowing Canada to keep for itself “all of the real powers of sovereignty and nationhood necessary for sustaining an economy, trade and diplomatic relations with other nations in the world.”

Recently, a number of Indigenous people’ representatives traveled to Geneva to articulate their grievances to the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.

And while the Liberals have followed through on their promise to officially launchthe inquiry into murdered and missing Indigenous women last week, many Indigenous women say the inquiry falls short, as it won’t look into complicit institutions such as the police force and child services.

2. His Stance on the Environment Is Less Progressive Than Obama’s

When United States President Barack Obama decided against construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, that would run through both the United States and Canada, Trudeau sounded a bit like a Texas oilman in expressing his disappointment.

His administration has toughened environmental standards for new pipeline projects, and he has pledged US$300 million a year for research into clean energy technology at the Paris climate conference last year. But with Enbridge’s Northern Gateway project scrapped, Trudeau has shifted his administration’s emphasis to another, Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain expansion, and has even gone so far as to blast the ultra-conservative Harper for not doing enough to push the US$6.8 billion project through.

Most recently he has approved the construction of the Site C dam, a proposed dam and hydroelectric generation station on the Peace River in the province of British Columbia that would flood about 5,550 hectares of agricultural land. It would also submerge 78 Indigenous heritage sites, including burial grounds and places of cultural and spiritual significance.

3. His Foreign Policy Is a Continuation of Harper’s on Many Fronts

Coming under fire from many activists and human rights groups for his recent US$11-billion arms deal to the despotic Saudi Arabian government, Trudeau justified it by saying it was a “done deal” and that he could not do anything about canceling it because it would involve large financial penalties and a loss in jobs. However, released documents by the justice department in response to a lawsuit seeking to block the deal, showed that foreign minister Stéphane Dion signed crucial export permits as late as April 2016.

“The government lied to Canadians about who signed what when in the Saudi arms deal, and that is a very serious matter,” the head of the country’s centre-left New Democratic Party, NDP, Thomas Mulcair said.

Responding to the new revelations, Dion said that similar weapons systems sold to Saudi Arabia since 1993 had been used responsibly.

“The best and updated information indicates that Saudi Arabia has not misused the equipment to violate human rights,” he told reporters. “Nor has the equipment been used in a manner contrary to the strategic interests of Canada and its allies.”

However such arguments contradict findings by many aid organizations and human rights groups monitoring conflicts. The United Nations has accused the Saudi coalition in Yemen of war crimes, crimes against humanity and targeting of civilians.

And while the prime minister came out last year to condemn the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against apartheid Israel, saying it “has no place on Canadian campuses,” he has even come out to support a Conservative party motion to condemn the movement.

It’s yet another instance of Trudeau aligning himself with the Tories to suppress the civil liberties of advocacy groups.

During the 2014 attacks by Israel on Gaza’s civilians, the Liberal Party, of which Trudeau was leader of, came out to declare, “Israel has the right to defend itself and its people … Hamas is a terrorist organization and must cease its rocket attacks immediately.”

4. He’s Not Nearly the Feminist He Claims to Be

While his Cabinet did achieve gender-parity for the first time, he also appointed two Conservative white men in what are arguably the most important positions, Treasury Board and Finance .

And while Trudeau says he supports for pay equity, his government has so far overlooked “the most glaring case of pay equity left in the federal public sector”—that of unionized postal workers with Canada Post, who are overwhelmingly women workers.

“We have a prime minister that has been advocating for pay equity, but yet the most glaring case of pay equity left in the federal public sector—here of the rural and suburban mail carriers of Canada Post—remains completely unresolved,” Mike Palecek, the union’s national president said in the Huffington Post.

Hundreds of these workers and their supporters marched to Trudeau’s Montreal office Saturday, hoping to push forward negotiations with Canada Post, especially surrounding wages and pensions.

Palecek told The Huffington Post that the majority-women suburban carriers end up making 28 per cent less than their predominantly male urban counterparts.

5. The Liberal’s Record on Civil Liberties Isn’t Great—and Trudeau Is Likely to Continue That

The hot-topic electoral issue during last year’s elections was arguably a Harper administration proposal, Bill-C51, or the Anti-Terrorism Act of 2015, which expanded surveillance powers and eroded judicial oversight. The draconian measure also allows Canada’s spy agency, CSIS, and other intelligence agencies to share Canadians’ personal information more widely and suppress dissent under the guise of combating threats to national security.

Trudeau’s Liberal Party endorsed the bill, and none of their proposed amendments have come to fruition, despite a growing cry from activists that Canada’s Patriot Act be scrapped.

[aphobiakills]

Discourse Walkthrough 2.0

In case you’re confused on the aro/ace discourse, as I know a lot of people are, here’s a basic idea of what’s going on! Let me just preface this by saying if you are still confused, please feel free to shoot me an ask and I will try to get things cleared up for you!

Why aren’t aromantic/asexual people lgbt?

The LGBT community was created to combat homophobia and transphobia. Obviously, to experience homophobia and transphobia you either have to experience sga (same/similar gender attraction) or not be cis. aro/ace people don’t automatically experience homophobia/transphobia, and if they do it is not because they are aro/ace.

On top of that, aro/ace people being in lgbt spaces often sucks up resources actual lgbt people need, so it really is harming us.

Isn’t SGA a term that comes from conversion therapy?

No, you’re thinking of “ssa” or “same sex attraction.” apart from being obviously more binary and therefore transphobic, “ssa” also has a lot of negative connotations for many people because of its association with conversion therapy.

“SGA” is similar to “SGL” or “same gender loving,” an AAVE term coined by Cleo Manago . As it is a black term, “SGL” shouldn’t be used by non-black lgbp people, but SGA has no background in conversion therapy, and is also ok for non-black people to use!

“SGA” can also stand for “same/SIMILAR gender attraction,” to encompass non-binary people who feel they can’t be attracted to the “same gender.” SGA encompasses gay, lesbian, bi, and pan people, it doesn’t matter how strongly you identify your same gender attraction, you are still allowed to use the term!

What is MGA? MGA is “multiple gender attraction,” which encompasses bi/pan/ply/etc people!

What resources are you talking about?

Scholarships, funds, beds at homeless shelters, lgbt suicide hotlines, pride clubs and other safe spaces with limited space, food that’s handed out at lgbt centers and clubs, et cetera.

This is NOT to say that aro/ace people in need of scholarships, funds, homeless shelters, suicide hotlines, free food, etc, do not deserve these resources but simply that if these resources are SPECIFICALLY for lgbt people, non lgbt aro-ace people have many other places to access these needs without using an lgbt service to come by them. 

But some aro/ace people are trans/bi/pan/lesbians!

You’re right! Those people ARE lgbt, but it is not because they are aro/ace. It would be because they are trans/bi/pan/etc.

But the acronym is LGBTQIA!

The full acronym is ‘LGBT.’ Some people do add the “+” to be inclusive of nonbinary people who don’t identify as trans, along with pan/ply people who don’t want to be included under the “B.” But the “QIA” is not necessary.

-”Q” stands for “Queer” which is a slur that not everyone has reclaimed. While it is true that a lot of people DO identify themselves as queer, it is still potentially harmful to include it in the acronym as many lgbt people still rightfully see it as a harmful slur associated with violence.

-note: ”Q” can also stand for questioning, so if the “q” is included in the acronym with that meaning, that’s fine as it doesn’t have negative connotation!

-”I” stands for “Intersex,” and many intersex people have come forward saying that they do not automatically consider themselves lgbt for being intersex. Some intersex people identify as cis, and it is harmful to force all intersex people to identify as lgbt. intersex people can choose to include themselves in the community on a case-by-case basis, but it is harmful to include it in the acronym, as it makes it hard for intersex people to be taken seriously when they identify as cis.

What about the A?

The A originally stood for ally, to allow closeted people access to lgbt resources. It was not always actually included in the acronym, but it was generally understood that you could identify yourself as an ally and participate in community events without outing yourself.

The “A is for asexual” movement was started in the early 2000′s by a cishet man named David Jay. Jay is openly homophobic, (just one instance of this is his pride at being able to work “fag” into the lgbt acronym) and most of us find it deeply offensive that a cishet man forced us to include more cishets into a community that was specifically designed to be safe from cishets.

LGBT is for all identities that differ from heteronormativity!

This is not true. If LGBT accepted all identities that were seen as “other” by society, we would be supporting kinksters, pedophiles, rapists, etc.This is not to say that aro/ace people are “categorized” with these people, (not at all,) but that the current LOGIC used to put aro/ace people in lgbt spaces, “lgbt is for anyone who experiences sexual attraction differently than the rest of society!!” is so vague and riddled with problematic themes that it allows rapists and pedophiles to feasibly call themselves lgbt. 

Along with that, cishet aces do not differ from heteronormativity, they actively contribute to it. Het people don’t suffer from heteronormativity.

But ace/aro  people are still queer!

Queer is a slur that was used against sga/mga (same/similar gender attraction and multiple gender attraction) people and trans people. Many people have personally reclaimed it and started identifying as queer, but ace/aro people have no claim to the word.

You cannot reclaim a slur if it was never taken from you and used against you violently in the first place.

But “straight” means heterosexual AND heteroromantic! Cishet aros/aces aren’t straight!

“straight” means you are exclusively attracted to the opposite binary gender, (i.e. a binary girl being exclusively attracted to binary boys, and vice versa.) It doesn’t matter if this is sexual attraction, romantic attraction, or both. Heteroromantic asexual people are straight, and heterosexual aromantic people are straight.

If you call bi aces bi, and ace lesbians lesbians, you can call straight aces straight.

ace people can’t be cishet, because they are ace.

Cisgender heteroromantic asexual. Cishet.

But ace people are just as oppressed as other LGBT identities!

Systematic oppression, or institutional oppression, is defined as “the systematic mistreatment of people within a social identity group, supported and enforced by the society and its institutions, solely based on the person’s membership in the social identity group.” Asexual people do not face laws, ideology, or practices that are “supported by society and its institutions.” An example of this would be the fact that 45 states still legally allow conversion therapy to be used on lgbt minors, or the fact that there are still at least 77 countries where ‘homosexuality’ is illegal, and sometimes even punishable by death.

Asexual people do not face oppression like this-at least not because they are ace. Asexual people are not kicked out of their homes for not experiencing sexual attraction, they are not at risk of being fired from their jobs when they tell their boss that they don’t have sex with their partner. There are not asexual youth who are homeless because they identify as ace. There are not hate crimes against ace people that result in 49 lost lives. Ace people are not murdered for being ace.

So yes, being ace may increase your risk of being a victim of a sexual assault crime. Yes, not everyone knows what “asexuality means.” But a lack of understanding and a lack of representation does not make you oppressed, and the fact that so many people realize this and still compare “aphobia” to homophobia is sickening.

This is aphobic!

The term “Aphobia” suggests that again, ace people are oppressed. As outlined above, you are not systematically oppressed for being ace.

Ace people face corrective rape!

First of all, “corrective rape” is a term lesbians coined to describe their experiences with being raped to “fix” them. Ace people should not be using this term.

secondly, people rape for a lot of reasons. One psychologist says that “there’s a wide variety of reasons that sex offenders choose victims. They can range in age from very young to old. There may perhaps be a focus on a particular eye color or hair color or body type.”

Sorority girls are at higher risk of sexual assault, people with numerous sexual partners are at higher risk of being raped.Inebriated women are at higher risk.

My point is that just because you are of a group of people with a characteristic or identity that puts you at higher risk of sexual assault doesn’t mean you’re oppressed. Redheads who may be targeted for their hair color aren’t called “oppressed.” Sorority girls don’t have “sorority girls and allies alliance.” Rapists are rapists, and will look for any excuse to take advantage of someone. This does not make an asexual survivor of rape any less valid, it doesn’t make their story any less horrifying and disgusting. It just means that facing a higher risk of sexual assault doesn’t automatically make you oppressed.

Telling ace people they aren’t lgbt is gatekeeping.

Gatekeeping is a term that trans women used to describe being cut off from healthcare. To use it in this context is gross. Telling straight cis people that they aren’t welcome in safe spaces from straight cis people isn’t gatekeeping, as we are only prioritizing the well-being and safety of lgbt people by doing it!

This is just recycled biphobia!

Biphobia is a legitimate issue within the lgbt community, to compare bi people to cishet aces is super offensive to bi people because we actually face oppression from straight people and discrimination within the lgbt community, we would really appreciate not being used as a token in your argument as most of us disagree with you.

But bisexual heteroromantic people are still bi! homosexual heteroromantic people are still gay! Why are heteroromantic ace people straight?

The issue here is that the split attraction model, when used on non a-spec (aromantic and asexual spectrum) identities, is just based in internalized homophobia and compulsory heterosexuality. Think of it this way-a bisexual woman who only dates men is clearly suffering from internalized biphobia, I don’t know any other way to explain this other than asking you to think about this hypothetical women, who says things like “i’ll have sex with lgb women, but i won’t date them.”  

point being, I’m not going to say these people are straight, gay, or anything because they clearly need to take a look at their own identities and figure out why they are identifying using the split attraction model. This is not a good argument because most of us strongly disagree with the way the split attraction model is used. 

aro/ace people are valid, stop telling us we aren’t.

Sure, you’re valid. Nobody is saying you aren’t-in fact i don’t think I’ve seen one person say aro/ace people aren’t real or something.

“you aren’t lgbt” =/= “you aren’t valid.“

aro/ace people deserve a community!

Sure! the lgbt community just isn’t the right one. This community was created out of hard work, if you want a community to talk about your experiences, to specifically help aro/ace people, you have to create one. “you aren’t lgbt” =/= “you aren’t valid.”

tl;dr aro/ace people are valid, but you aren’t queer and you aren’t lgbt by virtue of being aro/ace.

[quasi-normalcy]

No, I’m serious, if women all got together and went into electrical engineering or automotive repair en masse, then ten years later people would be talking about how it was a “soft field” and it would pay proportionately less than other fields.

Likewise, if men moved en masse to bedeck themselves in sparkles and make-up, then suddenly you’d get a bunch of editorials talking about how classy they look.

None of these things are inherently masculine or feminine; none of these things inherently elevate you or drag you down. But whatever women are seen to do is automatically seen as being inherently more frivolous than anything men do. And shaming women for not pigeonholing themselves into a narrow range of acceptable “masculine” behaviours is just going to result in the goalposts getting moved once again.

[an-gremlin-deactivated20160222]

This is literally what happened to basically every field women have entered. The opposite happens when men enter. Computers used to be a “woman thing” until the guys who did it got really mad about how badly their job was viewed and realized they could fix it by forcing out women.

[meariver]

Also happened/ is happening with the fields of biology and psychology….

[quasi-normalcy]

I honestly wonder how much of the backlash against public education in the last generation has been due to teaching becoming a woman-dominated profession.

[warpedellipsis]

Fashion used to be a men’s thing. Then women got involved in the late 17/1800’s, so men went the other way because it came to be seen as “frivolous” and “anti-intellectual” to care about how you looked. Add in the homophobia that arose around that time, bam, staid bland dress. Ditto leggings/tights, that are now called attention-whoring when on men they were required to show you cared about your figure and had the money to pay for such a fitted item. 

People want to say misogyny doesn’t exist, that male privilege doesn’t exist. Look beyond “living memory” and you’ll find that’s what drives the “inexplicable reversals” society seems to make on many things. Hell, just look beyond your own society, and you’ll find out that what’s considered “for men” elsewhere is held in high esteem while here it’s scoffed at purely because it’s “for women”: 

Skinny jeans are the height of masculinity in several east Asian societies, rather than being seen as “gay” in the USA because of their association with femininity. 

Medical fields in Russia are valued like kindergarten teachers are here, because it’s women who are the doctors instead of men.

Love and romance are highly valued in eastern countries, because men are interested in it too—of course they would be, surely you want to share your life with someone? Here, it’s strictly a women’s subject.

[darksnowfalling-deactivated2020]

The field of anthropology as a whole illustrates this.

Significantly higher proportions of females compared to males are currently entering the fields of archaeology and biological anthropology, and as this occurs, the prestige, funding, acceptance as valid kinds of science, etc, are fading quickly.

This has already occurred with linguistic anthropology and cultural anthropology. Cultural anthropology in particular went VERY quickly from being seen as a manly, scientific discipline (e.g., Franz Boas, Bronisław Malinowski) to being seen as a touchy-feely female thing.

[maxofs2d]

Let’s examine a traditionally male-dominated role that is very well-respected, and well-paid, in many parts of the world — that of a doctor. In the UK, it is listed as one of the top ten lucrative careers, and the average annual income of a family doctor in the US is well into six figures. It also confers on you significant social status, and a common stereotype in Asian communities is of parents encouraging their children to become doctors.

One of my lecturers at university once presented us with this thought exercise: why are doctors so highly paid, and so well-respected? Our answers were predictable. Because they save lives, their skills are extremely important, and it takes years and years of education to become one. All sound, logical reasons. But these traits that doctors possess are universal. So why is it, she asked, that doctors in Russia are so lowly paid? Making less than £7,500 a year, it is one of the lowest paid professions in Russia, and poorly respected at that. Why is this?

The answer is crushingly, breathtakingly simple. In Russia, the majority of doctors are women. Here’s a quote from Carol Schmidt, a geriatric nurse practitioner who toured medical facilities in Moscow: “Their status and pay are more like our blue-collar workers, even though they require about the same amount of training as the American doctor… medical practice is stereotyped as a caring vocation ‘naturally suited‘ to women, [which puts it at] a second-class level in the Soviet psyche.”

What this illustrates perfectly is this — women are not devalued in the job market because women’s work is seen to have little value. It is the other way round. Women’s work is devalued in the job market because women are seen to have little value. This means that anything a woman does, be it childcare, teaching, or doctoring, or rocket science, will be seen to be of less value simply because it is done mainly by women. It isn’t that women choose jobs that are in lower-paid industries, it is that any industry that women dominate automatically becomes less respected and less well-paid.

http://cratesandribbons.com/2013/12/13/patriarchys-magic-trick-how-anything-perceived-as-womens-work-immediately-sheds-its-value/

[bons-sonos]

“Men may cook or weave, or dress dolls or hunt humming birds, but if such activities are appropriate occupations of men, then the whole society, men and women alike, votes them as important. When the same occupations are performed by women, they are regarded as less important (Mead, 1949, p. 159).” https://www.questia.com/library/journal/1G1-19279160/in-a-complex-voice-the-contradictions-of-male-elementary

[iammyfather]

Please note the 20% drop in the wages of the 10 to 90 range from 199 to 2005, during this period Female lawyers rose from 8% to 30% of the field.  Ahow that to people that doubt.

http://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/migrated/marketresearch/PublicDocuments/lawyer_demographics_2012_revised.authcheckdam.pdf

[rootfauna-deactivated20180326]

Women In History

I grew up believing that women had contributed nothing to the world until the 1960′s. So once I became a feminist I started collecting information on women in history, and here’s my collection so far, in no particular order. 

Lepa Svetozara Radić (1925–1943) was a partisan executed at the age of 17 for shooting at German soldiers during WW2. As her captors tied the noose around her neck, they offered her a way out of the gallows by revealing her comrades and leaders identities. She responded that she was not a traitor to her people and they would reveal themselves when they avenged her death. She was the youngest winner of the Order of the People’s Hero of Yugoslavia, awarded in 1951

23 year old Phyllis Latour Doyle was British spy who parachuted into occupied Normandy in 1944 on a reconnaissance mission in preparation for D-day. She relayed 135 secret messages before France was finally liberated. 

Catherine Leroy, War Photographer starting with the Vietnam war. She was taken a prisoner of war. When released she continued to be a war photographer until her death in 2006.

Lieutenant Pavlichenko was a Russian sniper in WWII, with a total of 309 kills, including 36 enemy snipers. After being wounded, she toured the US to promote friendship between the two countries, and was called ‘fat’ by one of her interviewers, which she found rather amusing. 

Johanna Hannie “Jannetje” Schaft was born in Haarlem. She studied in Amsterdam had many Jewish friends. During WWII she aided many people who were hiding from the Germans and began working in resistance movements. She helped to assassinate two nazis. She was later captured and executed. Her last words were “I shoot better than you.”. 

Nancy wake was a resistance spy in WWII, and was so hated by the Germans that at one point she was their most wanted person with a price of 5 million francs on her head. During one of her missions, while parachuting into occupied France, her parachute became tangled in a tree. A french agent commented that he wished that all trees would bear such beautiful fruit, to which she replied “Don’t give me any of that French shit!”, and later that evening she killed a German sentry with her bare hands. 

After her husband was killed in WWII, Violette Szabo began working for the resistance. In her work, she helped to sabotage a railroad and passed along secret information. She was captured and executed at a concentration camp at age 23. 

Grace Hopper was a computer scientist who invented the first ever compiler. Her invention makes every single computer program you use possible. 

Mona Louise Parsons was a member of an informal resistance group in the Netherlands during WWII. After her resistance network was infiltrated, she was captured and was the first Canadian woman to be imprisoned by the Nazis. She was originally sentenced to death by firing squad, but the sentence was lowered to hard lard labor in a prison camp. She escaped. 

Simone Segouin was a Parisian rebel who killed an unknown number of Germans and captured 25 with the aid of her submachine gun. She was present at the liberation of Paris and was later awarded the ‘croix de guerre’. 

Mary Edwards Walker is the only woman to have ever won an American Medal of Honor. She earned it for her work as a surgeon during the Civil War. It was revoked in 1917, but she wore it until hear death two years later. It was restored posthumously. 

Rita Levi-Montalcini - Italian neuroscientist who won a Nobel Prize for her discovery of nerve growth factor. She died aged 103. 

A snapshot of the women of color in the woman’s army corps on Staten Island

This is an ongoing project of mine, and I’ll update this as much as I can (It’s not all WWII stuff, I’ve got separate folders for separate achievements). 

File this under: The History I Wish I’d Been Taught As A Little Girl

[rootfauna-deactivated20180326]

Part 2

Annie Jump Cannon was an american astronomer and, in addition to possibly having one of the best names in history, was co-creator of one of the first scientific classification systems of stars, based on temperature. 

Melba Roy Moutan was a Harvard educated mathematician who led a team of mathematicians at NASA, nicknamed ‘Computers’ for their number processing prowess. 

Joyce Jacobson Kaufman was a chemist who developed the concept of conformational topology, and studied at Johns Hopkins University before it officially allowed women entry in 1970. 

Vera Rubin is an astronomer and has co-authored 114 peer reviewed papers. She specializes in the study of dark matter and galaxy rotation rates. 

Mary Sherman Morgan was a rocket scientist who invented hydyne, a liquid fuel that powered the USA’s Jupiter C-rocket. 

Chien-Siung Wu was a physicist who worked on the Manhattan Project, as well as experimental radioactive studies. She was the first woman to become president of the American Physical Society. 

Mildred Catherine Rebstock was the first person to synthesize the antibiotic chloromycetin.

Ruby Hirose was a chemist who conducted vital research about an infant paralysis vaccine. 

Hattie Elizabeth Alexander was a pediatrician and microbiologist who developed a remedy for Haemophilus influenzae, and conducted vital research on antibiotic resistance. 

Marie Tharp was a scientist who mapped the floor of the Atlantic Ocean and provided proof of continental drift. 

Mae Jamison is an astronaut who holds a degree in chemical engineering from Stanford University and was the first black woman in space.

Ada Lovelace was a mathematician and considered to be the world’s first computer programmer. 

Patricia E Bath is ophthalmologist and the inventor of the Laserphaco Probe, which is used to treat cataracts. 

Barbara McClintock won a Nobel prize for her discovery that genes could move in and between chromosomes.

That’s it for now, part three will be on its way. (Josephine Baker was requested in the first installment, just know I did not forget her! She’s in a different folder, titled ‘famous people you didn’t know were complete badasses, and she, along with Hedy Lamar and Audrey Hepburn will be in the next installment :) )

[commune-or-nothing]

The Panama Papers show us, once again, that capitalism is a system of absolute greed. It is a system where capitalist governments help their mates to hide their income and wealth while all the time businesses pretend they are paying their “fair share” of tax.

The 11.5 million leaked documents from Mossack Fonseca contain details of the 14,000 clients of the Panama headquartered company and the 220,000 shell companies it has set up for them in tax havens around the globe.

Why tax havens? Not only do these countries have no or low tax rates they also have secrecy provisions which protect the income and assets of wealthy individuals and companies from the prying eyes of state bodies like tax offices and company regulators.

Shell companies mean that the ostensible owners of the companies are often front men and women for the real owners or are companies whose ultimate owners are untraceable. One senior tax officer many years ago summed up tax havens for me when he said they kill the paper trail.

Take Wilson Security here in Australia for example. It runs the “security” on Australia’s asylum seeker and refugee gulags, Manus Island and Nauru. It is owned by Wilson Offshore Group Holdings (BVI) Limited, a British Virgin Islands company set up by Mossack Fonseca to protect the true identity of the owners from any governmental scrutiny.

Thomas Kwok, one of those true owners, is in jail for fraud in Hong Kong. The other, his brother Raymond Kwok, was acquitted of similar charges. They had resigned as the directors of Wilson Offshore Group Holdings (BVI) Limited shortly after the charges were laid. Two companies, Winsome Sky and Harmony Core, replaced them as directors. The Panama Papers show the brothers control those two companies.

The reason for these arrangements? Wilson Security would not have won Australian government contracts if it knew that one of the real owners was in jail for fraud.

By the way, Wilson Security also supplies the guards for various government bodies, including the Australian Tax Office (ATO).

It is not just Wilson Security. The ATO is investigating 800 Australian entities named in the leaked documents. The Panama Papers refer for example to Australian banks and BHP Billiton. Banks are involved because you have to get the money out of your jurisdiction and into the tax havens, often via more reputable tax haven countries that supposedly aren’t, like Singapore, Hong Kong, Switzerland, The Netherlands or Luxembourg.

[mehreenkasana]

I know I will have a very heavy heart after reading these leaked papers but it is extremely crucial that we learn more about America’s brutal drone program that targets Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen. These documents published by The Intercept today provide us an unprecedented look into the world of terror and death caused by Obama admin’s drone strikes.