not Leora @notleora - Tumblr Blog

In Appreciation Of Mozzarella Sticks

Let’s get right down to business: Mozzarella sticks are AMERICA. Cheese. Deep Fried. As a stick. Pretty much everything you need all in one food. Melty AND crunchy. Deep fried to a mouth-watering golden brown. AMAZING even when they’re disgustingly bad. Because CHEESE. Deep fried, gooey, melt-in-your-mouth CHEESE. AS A STICK. A dippable, dunkable, deep-fried STICK. OF GREASY CHEESE. The ONLY food you will EVER need. CHEESE STICKS. The end.

#meta

upworthyspringfield

liartownusa

Sweet Glen“Gone But Not Forgotten” inspirational jpeg

notleora

I need this framed.

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Happy Canada Day

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Canadians scare me a little more every day.

confusedtree-deactivated2013092

This isn’t even my final form you pitiful mass of flesh

imthevideogameboy

I WAS NOT EXPECTING THAT AT ALL, WHAT

whenyoureallyliveinwien

When seeing the new WU campus

(via FYI (if you’re a teenage girl) | Given Breath) My response to that horrid "FYI (if you're a teenage girl)" post: Everything about this blog post is stupid. From the slut shaming, to the double standards (hey, I'm going to post pictures of my 3 sons wearing bathing suits, while talking about how teenage girls need to cover up more. Cause it's ok for boys to be half naked, but when a girl does it, it's obviously because she's a sexual object). It's stupid unfortunate that the author doesn't understand that girls who take tons of "selfies" and live for positive reinforcement about their physical appearance WERE SOCIALISED INTO THIS, so this behaviour is a straight up social fact. Maybe when your kids were raised being photographed multiple times per day by their parents who document every activity, mess, dirty diaper, tantrum, birthday party and whatever else; well, maybe growing up in a world where everything is documented affects the way kids act and see themselves and determine their self worth. Especially girls, who had to deal with sexism and the objectification of their bodies long before the internet ever existed. And hey, maybe inferring that teenage girls need to be "good enough" to be "chosen" by your family, or your sons is some pretty outdated bullshit too. How about considering that compatibility is different than just "I PICK THEE TO BE MINE VAGINA; to bear my children; to be my woman." So, yeah. This blog is crappy.

#slut shaming #feminism #sociology #double standards #gender #sexism

My "Jewfro" is great, and so am I.

I felt like writing about my "Jewfro" (with more words than appropriate for a Facebook "status". Firstly because over the past few days, several of my friends have been writing about hairstyles and such.

Anyway, I have what is colloquially known as a "Jewfro". I was born with a full head of black hair because.... genetics.

Cultural norms

My hair is very frizzy and very thick, and for most of my life, I have been pressured in various ways to not let my hair be in its natural state. How?

- being mocked by other kids in school about my messy or "dirty" hair

- pop cultural, and idealised forms of femininity which tell us that straight hair which is "neat" is the normal and natural way for hair to look

- adding to this, hair products

- shitty jokes

- negative stereotypes about people of non-Western European heritage.

Those are a few examples. If you are someone (especially a woman) who was born with straight "white people" hair, this might be hard to understand and it might even seem like Leora's trying to pull some 90th wave feminist bullshit on you, but that's the thing: when one "type" of anything becomes socially accepted as normal and natural, this allows for the construction of "others" who deviate from the norm.

The sans-Jewfro era

For a very long time, once I was old enough to make choices about how my hair looked, I got it treated often. As a bonus, I had worked in a hair salon in high school, so I had easy access to an [amaaaazing] hair stylist. I always had "cool" hair, and you would never know that my head was secretly shrouded by a cage of ugliness.

Then I moved to Vancouver, and I didn't have the time, money or trust to let a professional cut and style my hair on the regular. And so over the years, my hair has reverted back to its natural state.

More negative stuff about my hair

Some of my friends lovingly mock my Jewfro. Other times I mock it myself. It's entertaining, but it's also a reflection of the strong cultural norms that exist which ultimately say "the only kind of hair that is normal and thus appropriate for a woman to have is straight hair." Frizzy hair, wavy hair, big poofy hair - all of which are generally characteristics of marginalised ethnic groups and races - have been conflated with notions of ugliness, dirtiness, laziness and a host of other negative descriptors.

Stuff that is bullshit

- it's bullshit that if I don't have time to straighten my hair into an unnatural submission that I am seen as unprofessional or unkempt

- it's bullshit that if I let my hair do its thing that I must be having a lazy day, or at least one where the outside world is not supposed to see me

- it's bullshit that people think that what is 100% legit Leora is viewed at times as hilarious or unfortunate

Return to the Jewfro, and you can eat a hat if you don't like it

So I like my hair. It's taken me years to accept it, and years to not think that when I let it do it's thing that I am not being dirty, lazy, ugly, unfeminine, backwards-fashioned or just plain "bad". Why should I have to change the way I look? I'm still the same Leora.

My hair is cool, because it's me.

#Hegemony #Hair #fashion #social norms #beauty #ugly #culture #cultural hegemony #Jews #othering

bargainbinblasphemy

Manilove Burning Churches.

cosmarxpolitan

Cosmarxpolitan, Issue 2

The Asiatic mode of production and your butt

#marx engels sociology

bargainbinblasphemy

The Wayfaring Anger of BURL IVES.

crossconnectmag

Benedetta Bonichi

Fantastical creatures, x-rayed combinations of human and animals, describe the work of Italian artist Benedetta Bonichi. You can see more of her amazing body of work in her website, To See in the Dark.

scorchedearthprotocols-deactiva

Love these!

rosalindrobertson

A while ago, I penned a fairly angry response to something circulating on the internet – the 21 Habits of Happy People. It pissed me off beyond belief, that there was an inference that if you weren’t Happy, you simply weren’t doing the right things.

I’ve had depression for as long as I can...

notleora

These are all very good tips. I'd like to add that for #19 about "depression will lie to you", it doesn't just like about being unloved or that people think negatively about you. It will also nag you in your ear and tell you that you don't care about the people who could have sworn that you love. That feeling is horrible too.

"Because you'd love to pay five times the amount you originally paid for the sweatshirt you bought at Wal-Mart and wore every day of third grade." Seriously... Taz???

Why Is Urban Outfitters Bringing Back The WORST Of The '80s And '90s

#buzzfeed #urban outfitters #fashion #80s #90s #bad taste #wtf #hipsters

Where are we now? Rape and more rape.

Where are we now? I’m going to start with my story, for context, and then go on to some other stuff: rape statistics, and problems of projecting “rape as a problem” on other places, and how we engage in Othering when rape happens in places outside of Canada.

My story

Nearly ten years ago, on March 29, 2003, a stranger outside of a subway station in Toronto raped me. The judgment and court transcripts will show that cops witnessed this happen; that I called 9-1-1; that there was security footage of this. Despite all of this, the person was acquitted.

But he was acquitted on June 20, 2005. I remember the judge starting off with statements that sounded like I had “won”. He was describing what happened to me, and stating it as fact. But then he would describe what the defense had said, and how prosecution failed to contest it. He mentioned how defense claimed I did not call 9-1-1 (phone records show otherwise), but prosecution did not contest this. He described how the defense made claims that sounded completely unbelievable, but the prosecution did not contest this.

He described how the defense stated that the defendant, my rapist, did not penetrate me anally with his penis, because that was against his religion. The prosecution did not contest this by bringing attention to medical evidence, let alone by subpoenaing the doctors who treated me at the hospital.

For a total of 6 years, I was revictimized by lawyers, by people at the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board (CICB), and by myself, while I was constantly reminded of what happened and questioned if I was just some over-dramatic girl who misinterpreted something that wasn’t really “wrong”. I still struggle with PTSD, but at least now CICB pays for my psychotherapy!

So where are we now?

Statistics:

Well, to start, Statistics Canada’s most recent report on sexual assault in Canada states that “About one in ten sexual assaults is reported to police, according to the 2004 General Social Survey (GSS) on Victimization. With only a small proportion of sexual offences formally documented through law enforcement, the prevalence of sexual assault in Canada has been difficult to quantify.”

It’s a big problem, and we only know a small part of the picture. If you’re interested in numbers, read this publication and go from there.

Rape Culture

Recently, through social media, a lot has been said about “rape culture” and the social norms, myths and stereotypes that continue to impede any advances in dealing with the problems of rape, preventing it, supporting victims, and recognizing it as something other than “sexual”. So I’m not going to go there.

Projecting our problems elsewhere while ignoring our own; shifting the blame to “backwards” cultures

Over the past few months, several international rape cases have received a lot of attention in the media, who often focus on perceived archaic and culturally-backwards [inferred as such] qualities of these places. Problems of rape in India (including gang rape) have drawn outrage -- as they should. Another case receiving attention through social media is the story of a 15 year-old girl in the Maldives victim who was sentenced to 100 lashes for premarital sex

Are these places backwards or what?!? /sarcasm

Othering

When people look at these cases from afar, we can create an Other. In sociology, the “Other” implies a binary of dominance and subordination, where the Other is the subordinate; or of superiority and inferiority; of insider or outsider. It can be marked by physical appearances, behaviour, language, culture, knowledge or material possessions, for example.

It’s easy to criticize other places with documented “poorer” records of women’s rights, or “corrupt” institutions. (Disclaimer: YES! Men get raped too and suffer immensely! By mentioning “women’s rights” I am not ignoring the men and boys who have been victimized)

But we have these problems in Canada too. As mentioned earlier, only about 10% of sexual assaults are reported to the police. This statistic alone speaks volumes to the problems that exist here – that keep people from reporting rapes; that even when reported lead to abysmal conviction rates (and yes, the issue with how we treat those convicted of crimes is a whole other problem to be unpacked).

It’s important to be aware of problems that exist elsewhere, but not to the point that they give us a false sense of being “not as bad” as those far away places.

So really, where are we now? Is rape even a real crime?

In the ten years since I was raped, I can honestly say I feel as though nothing has changed. I would like to think that the recent Steubenville rape case in America has brought greater attention to problems in America (and in Canada) surrounding how we deal with rape. But I’m not that optimistic. In two weeks will people still be talking about this? In one year will people still be talking about this?

It is going to take a major paradigm shift in the way a multitude of issues are viewed before rape can really be taken seriously.

In closing, I would like to quote one of Émile Durkheim’s most famous quotes about what makes a crime a crime. After reading it, one must consider: do we really see rape as a crime? Do we see it differently depending on where it occurs, and who it happens to?

“We must not say that an action shocks the common conscience because it is criminal, but rather it is criminal because it shocks the common conscience. We do not reprove it because it is a crime, but it s a crime because we reprove it.”

- Émile Durkheim, from “The Division of Labour in Society”, 1893