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this blog is sponsored by female facial hair

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what language should I learn next

swedish

icelandic

farsi / persian

french

russian

button for meee

Remaining time: 2 days 8 hours

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netanyahu destroying the israel-america bond (finally)

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finally, a feminist anthropologist on youtube. please go and support her and this video to encourage her to make more (-:

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she added a note about one of her claims though. I thought 6x stronger sounded like a bit much lol. to be clear though the video isn’t particularly about sex differences it’s about misconceptions about what paleolithic women were up to (and by extension paleolithic humans in general)

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finally, a feminist anthropologist on youtube. please go and support her and this video to encourage her to make more (-:

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I like sav brown fine but I do find it incredibly depressing that women with good instincts can’t even be relied upon anymore to name what something is. maybe not the male gaze which is a film studies term I believe, but this phenomenon has been written of elsewhere and ‘eroticism’ doesn’t exist separately from power relations. it’s like a bog standard feminist observation about female self-surveillance under patriarchy…

also it’s accurate to talk of the self-surveillance inspired by abrahamic religions but that is also an aspect of the patriarchy and class control. organised religion, of all things, does not exist outside of political and social reality either! I’m in a bit of despair at how the current culture seems to cause otherwise very intelligent women to reject any form of self-criticism of their own practices and ideas. people are obsessed with ideas of identity and personality type, ‘personal development’ and growth, but there is so much effort put towards always being 100% fine with everything you ever choose to do, to never consider how those choices are conditioned or constrained, to never turn the critical eye inwards. anyways this isn’t really about this one person, it just made me think how depressing it all is. and now I need to go out and take a walk.

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Marjane Satrapi, creator of Persepolis and acclaimed French-Iranian artist, dies aged 56

Family members said the author of the landmark comic book memoir ‘died of sadness’ after the death of her husband last year

rest in peace marjane satrapi ♥️

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a strategy against getting lost in algorithms or infinite scrolls is to start a list of ‘things I want to check out during breaks’, eg longer-form videos you have seen, articles you have come across and not read yet, even albums you want to slowly chip away at, etc. it could be anything

and when you come to take a break in your work day, or just relax on an evening and want to stop being bombarded with random stimuli, just pick up your list of things to look at and decide which one seems good. it doesn’t have to be complicated or taxing, whatever fits your current state. the idea is just to avoid the time-waster that is looking for things to do or getting stuck on doing a bunch of short things in quick succession that disturb your sense of peace/makes your brain short-circuit

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a lot of debates I see between radical feminists online, or disagreements, are not even really disagreements, they’re just the expected fallout when one person is tackling an issue from a pragmatic point of view, and one is tackling it from a theoretical point of view

take an interesting discussion I saw between two radical-leaning women, one of them was saying she would like to share radical feminist ideas and writing with her socialist friends, but many of them would reject it as soon as they find out there’s some association with ‘terfism’. the other woman was arguing that that is simply their own issue and they clearly need to unpack the liberal ideology present in gender identity theory and allow themselves to think critically. the initial woman then says okay, but most people are discouraged from thinking critically, so now what?

anyway that itself is an interesting discussion about a carrot versus the stick approach to getting people to engage with feminist theory but I won’t keep on with it. I do think feminists could benefit from becoming a little more pragmatic though

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the police obviously really fucked up with henry nowak because most of them are incompetent and can’t even explore the most basic claims being made at the scene of a crime. but the idea anyone is being fooled into thinking the police are operating a system of policing in favour of minorities and immigrants and against white british people is crazy……… this was an extraordinarily fringe case based on all its characteristics

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I wouldn’t say the trans movement is divided on the sex industry bc the movement is very western-directed and liberal, but politicised trans people are very divided on it and it falls neatly along class lines just as you’d expect. more affluent trans people from the global north generally do not give a damn about trafficked trans people from poor countries. I am 100% serious when I say trans people in countries where they face considerable threat from the existence of the industry would be better off divesting from these people and partnering with feminists in this goal but of course that is not going to happen bc they’re too opposed on identity stuff!

but I hope these clear class divisions at least make pro-sex work liberals who want to give a damn about other people pause for thought and consider whether the aims of being pro this industry are compatible with their ostensibly pro-trans politics. whatever brings people to see the light on this issue awomen 🙏

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the way micarah tewers sewing youtuber was almost killed by medical misogyny when she went to the emergency room in agonising pain and they decided she was probably drug-seeking, waited an hour before giving her anything, gave her a painkiller (morphine) that she told them doesn’t work well for her (it didn’t work and she began throwing up as a result) and refused to offer her the one she said has worked for her in the past (she was screaming and couldn’t walk), then they gave her an antihistamine(????), then gave her a fucking antipsychotic(!!!!), before finally taking her to get a CT scan and realising she needed emergency surgery for a hard mass stuck in her intestine. only then did they ease her pain because she went under. it was the day before her wedding was scheduled too. and she said she was usually hesitant to go to the hospital because she worries about doctors thinking she’s faking symptoms but knew she had to go this time because it was unbearable )):

people are literally so evil I’m sorry I don’t think I’d ever be able to forgive the medical staff for putting me through something like that

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people understand the concept of stolen land irt colonial capture and mass displacement but people rarely move from this idea to its next conclusion: almost everywhere is stolen land. you in your ex-coloniser country are also likely standing on land that people who had previously enjoyed right of habitation on were violently displaced from by ruling classes (classes bc what groups of people were responsible varies country by country). in england this displacement, called the enclosure movement, led to mass starvation of the now landless population who previously could farm on common lands or on pockets of land belonging to the nobility. it acted as the blueprint for overseas colonial privatisation of land and natural resources and the ensuing displacement (if not for the direct murder). you are also standing on land that was stolen from common people

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india and ireland are good examples of this kind of privatisation that didn’t feature as much direct settlement on the land by the british (which we can contrast with cases that did, eg north america, but privatisation of land looked very different there for many reasons). much like in england the british destroyed the traditional ways of life of people who had previously had rights to subsist from the land. in ireland peasants only occupied less favourable land and had to farm the one thing that would grow well, potatoes. in india access to common forests and water sources that could act as backup food for years when famine hit were privatised. in ireland the potato blight hit and unable to access other sources of food 1 million people died. in india two droughts about ten years apart caused famines. many people usually weathered those because they had access to different sources of food, but now those had been stolen. between both of these famines I think about 30 million people died. and in both india and ireland these cases of mass starvation happened whilst the british were producing a surplus of food in these countries and shipping them overseas for sale on european markets

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people understand the concept of stolen land irt colonial capture and mass displacement but people rarely move from this idea to its next conclusion: almost everywhere is stolen land. you in your ex-coloniser country are also likely standing on land that people who had previously enjoyed right of habitation on were violently displaced from by ruling classes (classes bc what groups of people were responsible varies country by country). in england this displacement, called the enclosure movement, led to mass starvation of the now landless population who previously could farm on common lands or on pockets of land belonging to the nobility. it acted as the blueprint for overseas colonial privatisation of land and natural resources and the ensuing displacement (if not for the direct murder). you are also standing on land that was stolen from common people

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autistic masking in a lot of cases isn’t about trying to be a person you’re not. it’s about trying to be a version of yourself that will be better understood and accepted by others. you want to say the same things but you’re having to translate them into a different language than your native tongue so your emotions and intentions will be better understood by people who don’t speak your native language, this sort of thing

or at least this is how I view my own social interactions. I know if I didn’t translate it the chances are I might be misunderstood

obviously this is where acceptance and tolerance of difference by others comes into it, in that in order for autistic people to be spared the cognitive load and exhaustion of constant translation and monitoring, non-autistic people need to be aware that sometimes you will come across differently from how they expect, maybe even negatively by their norms, but they will either have to be open to asking you what you mean or else assuming your good intentions. but this requires a vulnerable conversation about you wanting to try and not mask so much and obviously it requires personal effort too

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people haven’t read kimberlé crenshaw’s paper that originated the concept of intersectionality to the point that they don’t just come out with statements that are the opposite of what she was arguing but sometimes actively create new variations on the very phenomenon that caused her to write the paper in the first place lol. and then they say that’s intersectionality. like my friend that is what intersectionality was arguing against god bless

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imo at least some of the time people don’t tell you because their intention isn’t for it to be fixed/they know they’re being unfair to you, but they just want you away from them and their group anyway. tough to swallow pill but some people simply don’t want to know neurodivergent people because they lack the skills to accommodate difference and/or are just nasty people tbh. not always the case obviously, but people who actually like you and care about the relationship they have with you will almost always give you the opportunity to explain something even if not immediately. I understand realising the former can suck though ♥️