𝖘𝖈𝖆𝖗

???

[gothhabiba]

see this is exactly what I'm talking about. this labour is so incredibly invisibilised that there are real human beings, walking about amongst us, leading normal lives, etc., who earnestly believe that machines can make an item of clothing from start to finish.

[rowanrightalong]

Hey just in case someone on here doesn’t quite understand how labor intensive making a garment is, here is a list of things that (to the best of my knowledge) cannot be done by machine alone, from a costumer/tailor in training

Cutting - in my opinion, the most labor intensive part of the process. The amount of time/effort needed varies depending on the pattern and if seam allowance is included or marked separately, but no matter what this process can not be done by machine. Each and every panel and piece of fabric that goes into a garment must be cut by hand by a person.

Pinning/clipping - pinning (or clipping) is the stage at which you align the pieces you are going to be stitching together and hold them together with — you guessed it! — either pins or clips. This can not be done by machine.

Stitching - the actual sewing. This can be done by a sewing machine, but that machine still needs to be operated by a human being.

Ironing/pressing - two words that mean the same thing. The iron itself is a machine, but once again, it needs to be operated by a human being.

Finishing - depending on the technique you use, there are certain finishing techniques that can only be done by hand. But, let’s assume we’re talking about fast fashion, which is usually just finished with a simple overlock/serger. Once again: these machines need to be operated by people.

These are just the basic steps to making a garment, and don’t include textile arts that I am not as knowledgeable about, such as weaving, knitting, and crochet. Also, it is important to note that there are a lot of things that can only be done by hand, such as certain stitches and decorative techniques.

Also, the machinery being operated in textile factories is not equivalent to a domestic sewing machine. We’re talking about one of these guys:

See that gray cylinder under the table, behind the knee pedal? That’s the motor. These machines can sew through your fingers bones and all and not even stop. The people in these factories and sweatshops are operating heavy machinery, and are subject to all the risk that comes with that in addition to all of the work I mentioned above.

Please respect textile workers and continue the fight to eliminate the use of sweatshops and exploited labor in the fashion industry!

[uninterruptednonsense]

Reblogging with some additions from a different post o'mine:

" I'm taking a sewing class and I asked my teacher about how much machines can actually do. She said that while a lot of actual fabric we use in our projects is machine-woven, and sometimes there are machines for particular knitting patterns or for the same small thing over and over and over (i.e. socks), the overwhelming majority of pieces of clothing are in fact just sewn together by humans. Usually women. Underpaid and overlooked. Thousands and thousands of them, working 12 hours a day or more in huge warehouse-factories. You're probably wearing something one of those women created right now.

Most of the students (including me) were horrified. We had *no* idea. We figured that, given that we have supercomputers and massive industrial systems for almost every type of product you can buy, surely we would have figured out a better way? Surely there are machines that can put a t-shirt together by now?

She said, no, that's why fast fashion is really so bad. It's not simply about the quality of the product, it's about the human cost.

When you buy a cheap tee that says "Made in Bangladesh", this is where your clothing came from (and these are from one of the nicer factories):

(By Fahad Faisal. CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=89582692)

Don't want to believe it? I understand. Here is the wikipedia page, you can read it in your own time https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Textile_industry_in_Bangladesh#Readymade_garment_(RMG)_industry

[queeranarchism]

This isn't just true of clothes either. There's an astonishing amount of human labor behind most of our products. Even the steps that are automated are only possible because humans are constantly cleaning, maintaining, repairing, adjusting and fine tuning the machines.

I've noticed that the media that educates us often edits that out on purpose. In 'how its made' type videos, steps humans do by hand are often skipped because they don't make as smooth a video as watching machines do the parts of the production process that can be automated. These kinds of videos also seem like they prioritize highly automated factories even if most of the industry for a product is a lot less automated.

[identitty-dickruption]

when you look at a psychiatric diagnosis and you see that it has a 3:1 diagnostic rate of women to men, it's more likely to be diagnosed in trans people than cisgender people, and it's most prevalent in hispanic people out of any ethnic group. you really do have to consider who benefits from a label that amounts to "Biologically and Pathologically Hysterical". yknow.

[identitty-dickruption]

it’s not a “stigmatised” disorder. it’s a disorder that was designed to stigmatise, to shame, and to oppress. acting as though the diagnosis is a stigmatised one is missing the part where this diagnosis is in fact meeting the exact purpose it was designed to fulfil

[beyond-a-name]

OP's tags from both the original post and the reblog were too good to hide.

that's really exactly it.

as someone who could very easily qualify for a diagnosis of bpd or cptsd, and even very often resonates with both, everything described in bpd is just a demonization of the same patterns of behaviour described by cptsd. it is just describing you as evil for struggling with being hurt so much, and in doing so, takes the focus away from the person hurting and puts it onto how it inconveniences everyone else.

we really need to be critical of how these labels come to be, because they are deliberately created, and they are created by people with biases. they are so often just a tool of oppression, another extension of a discriminatory machine.

I hope it isn't derailing, but I think this is also really illustrated with Narcissistic Personality Disorder. "narcissist" was a word for an asshole before it was a word for a disorder. rather than describing how someone might struggle to relate to others or be open to true connection, and centering the person who needs to heal, they instead called everyone who struggles with that an irredeemable dick and dressed it up in medical expertise so you wouldn't think to question it. frankly I think it's silly to call for treating "narcissist" like some sacred medical term instead of looking at how fucked up it is that they called a disorder that???

it was ages ago, but there was a post on here talking about just how many "disorders" and diagnoses boil down to "shitty bitch disease". and well, once you see it, you never stop seeing it. anti-social personality disorder? shitty bitch disease. npd, shitty bitch disease. obstinate defiance disorder (come the fuck on) well that's shitty bitch disease. bpd is maybe the most classic example of this. you don't need to listen to her, she has shitty bitch disease. pay no mind to the fact that this label somehow only makes it onto the most marginalized. don't worry about that, because you don't need to listen to those people anyway. they don't have reasons or pain or bad days or feelings or any of that pesky stuff that real people have to explain their actions. no no, we haven't abused them, not at all. haven't you heard? they were broken from the start, and I can prove it. see? they have shitty bitch disease.

[foxgirl1668]

In my head canon Krolia unofficially adopted Acxa and Romelle and they all like going out to dinner at shitty fast food places and seeing what Earth has to offer

Also, YES… Voltron in 2026. I’m hearing whispers of a vld resurgence

[sheishine]

Blue Octopus and Japanese Catfish (2023) by Hiné Mizushima.

[queeranarchism]

"Yelling is not inherently abusive. White calmness and tears are often worse. This might be a controversial take, so let me name my bias. I come from a lineage of women who raised their voice to stop harm and restore justice. And women who raised their voices to cause harm and belittle. So when I defend the loud voice, know that I am defending my own, and that I know the different first hand. Watch who is the loudest. Usually, Black communities, Indigenous communities and in communities of the global south. The features of human expression that get called barbaric are the ones most alive in us. Look at parliaments where Indigenous and global-majority members are screaming on the floor because a law about to pass will strip people of their rights. It looks wild to a Western eye. They are the ones with their humanity still switched on. Now look at the American Senate. They discuss bombing and starving children across the globe in mild, measured, reasonable tones. The atrocity is enormous, yet the voices never rise. And notice who does raise their voice in those rooms. Almost always the Black and brown members, the ones still treating horror like a horror. This is a systemic critique, not a comment on your life. Whiteness and Western power will smile in your face, speak in hushed tones, even cry, while doing the most atrocious things to you. Cue the white woman tears. Then cue the wellness industry. The creators and practitioners who measure your worth by your tone, who decide your nervous system is regulated based on how quietly you can sit while something unbearable happens. Calm is not the same as good. A measured tone can be the most harmful thing in the room. The composure is sometimes just the sound of someone who has made peace with the harm. When I get loud, something horrendous has already happened. I am doing what animals in the wild do. Projecting my voice, using my whole presence, gesticulating to make it known that I will not stand for this. This is not a pass to scream at people. There is always personal responsibility to wield your rage skillfully and well. A raised voice can ham, and you own it when it does. But if we are serious about collective liberation, we have to be honest that it will take all sorts. The shout and the whisper both have a place. And sometimes the calmest, mildest tone if the most dangerous one in the room. Your rage is not the thing that needs managing. Your discernment does. Knowing when the loud voice is one telling the truth is a relational skill and it can be learned."

Christabel Mintah-Galloway

[catcrumb]

[catcrumb]

[foxy-alien]

Keith! Keith! Please!

[mousidy]

"sex is real" is a very funny thing to say to a group of people who very famously change their sex on purpose

[mousidy]

in abandoning discussion of the nuances of sex in trans discourse, we've ironically let bioessentialist, binaristic thinking fester and rot out our communities

we've stopped actually challenging the binary, we just slapped "amab" and "afab" over "male" and "female," and we treat transition itself like a mere act of dressup. we let blatant transphobia run rampant all the time as long as people call each other "amab" and "afab" instead of misgendering them directly

"afab bodies," "amab energy," "afab only housing," "amab behavior" THIS IS TRANSPHOBIA. YOU ARE MAKING ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT PEOPLE'S BEHAVIORS AND BODIES BASED ON THEIR ASSIGNED SEX. THE WORD FOR THAT IS TRANSPHOBIA

sex does not determine your behaviors. sex is not a binary. sex can be changed, and IS changed by medical transition, INCLUDING hrt

is it even a "trans" community if we don't hold these things to be true? how can a community of trans people who bind each other to their agabs like the rest of the world does be called a trans community? come the fuck on

[pocket-deer-belly]

Just an fyi about your bmi post, many doctors are starting to move to waist to height ratio, which monitors visceral fat (the real killer, which anyone of any bmi can have an unhealthy amount of) and general health promoting habits, instead of just bmi

just an fyi, doctors have developed their phrenology a bit and are finding new ways to justify telling fat patients to lose weight instead of treating them like are you fucking serious

[cuntpunkop-ed]

such absolute bullshit. people distribute fat differently. there is literally no one size fits all method of determining "health". because what is bmi if not just a shield for doctors to hide behind and deny you care? there are no "normal" people. no one is the ideal "average" and once again this is a completely useless tool for the vast majority of the population

[queeranarchism]

Size does not determine health. Size does not determine health. Size does not determine health. Measuring it differently does not change the fact that size does not determine health.

And also, unhealthy people still need actual health care from their doctors, not a lecture. Fuck this shit on so many levels.

[catcrumb]

[veryluckyclovers]

[raingardening]

i think there is a phenomenon where sometimes a trans person will go “hmm. i am treated as a man when it is convenient for others, and a woman when it is convenient for others, and often as a freakish third thing excluded from the advantages of both. surely, because of the gender binary, the Other Type of trans person experiences the opposite: they reap the benefits of maleness and femaleness at once.” like babes no they can do it twice

[milliebobbyflay]

people like saying community when they mean demographic

[puppydoghter]

"i do not treat you with any of the tolerance or care that a community implies. nevertheless, i perceive your identity as being related to me in such a way that i feel entitled to you and your behaviors conforming to an arbitrary set of standards that i have. if you fail to comply, i will mobilize a social-based deterrence to 'correct' you to the best of my means."

[queeranarchism]

People who do this are basically practicing the Home Owners Association definition of community.

Which doesn't mean we gotta throw out the word community, any more than we should throw out words like 'solidarity' just because they aren't always practiced the way we'd like. Calling ourselves a community rather than a demographic might be purely aspirational in some cases, but that aspiration is a reminder to build communities.

And speaking of the trans community: we need that. I can not overstate how much we will only survive if we're willing to house and feed each other, buy each other medication and get out of bed at 3 AM to sit with a distant acquaintance who just had their whole world fall apart.

We can be a demographic online, but in the world world we gotta hold each other. We gotta keep trying even if our efforts are imperfect, because if we settle for being a demographic, many of us won't survive.

[thewindowofthesummerhouse]

Tin Can Forest

[anarchopuppy]

just gonna share some resources on preventing and treating activist burnout (and other trauma) from mutual aid disaster reliefs resource list

weve got 4 long years ahead of us, and after that many more years until the american empire is dead and capitalism is defeated and all are free. we need resilience. we need to learn how to make resistance a regular, sustainable part of our lives. let this radicalize u instead of lead u to despair

Mutual Aid Disaster Relief: Navigating Trauma

Trauma_OverviewPreventing BurnoutUnderstanding and Coping with Traumatic StressUnderstanding and Addressing Vicarious Trauma

Grounding and Centering for Activists

Rising Up Without Burning Out

Sustainable Activism and Avoiding Burnout

Psychological First AidActivist Trauma and Recovery

Trauma and Therapeutic Art: Information for Children, Families and Volunteers

Community Trauma Toolkit

Coping With_Climate_Change_Distress

[caemidraws]

The Fool