Tervacious

I Am That Bitch.

[tervacious]

Ordered a shitload of incense and I have no regrets.

[tervacious]

Parent trap: why the cult of the perfect mother has to end

Worldwide, mothers are overworked, underpaid, often lonely and made to feel guilty about everything from epidurals to bottle feeding. Fixing this is the unfinished work of feminism

Technically all feminism is unfinished at this point in history, barely started in fact if the results of approximately 100 years of talk is to be cynically analyzed.  We’re in really bad straits tbh, and this article actually articulates it very well.  The myraid ways in which women have gone backwards.  

[tervacious]

Audre Lorde on BDSM and choice

Leigh: What about the doctrine of “live and let live” and civil liberties issues?

Audre: I don’t see that as the point. I’m not questioning anyone’s right to live. I’m saying we must observe the courses and implications of our lives. If we are talking about feminism then the personal is political and we can subject everything in our lives to scrutiny. We have been nurtured in a sick, abnormal society, and we should be in the process of reclaiming ourselves, not the terms of that society. This is complex. I speak not about condemnation but about recognizing what is happening and questioning what it means. I’m not willing to regiment anyone’s life. If we are to scrutinize our human relationships, we must be willing to scrutinize all aspects of those relationships. The subject of revolution is ourselves, is our lives.

Sadomasochism is an institutionalized celebration of dominant/subordinate relationships. And, it prepares us either to accept subordination or to enforce dominance. Even in play, to affirm that the exertion of power over powerlessness is erotic, is empowering, is to set the emotional and social stage for the continuation of that relationship, politically, socially and economically.

Sadomasochism feeds the belief that domination is inevitable. It can be compared to the phenomenon of worshipping a godhead with two faces, and worshipping only the white part on the full moon and the black part on the dark of the moon, as if totally separate. But you cannot corral any aspect within your life, divorce its implications, whether it’s what you eat for breakfast or how you say goodbye. This is what integrity means.

[tervacious]

‘So You Brought Home A White Girl, Huh?’ Say Skeptical White Parents To White Son

WESTPORT, CT—Local white parents Dennis and Theresa Ludlow expressed skepticism Monday while confronting their white son about the fact that he brought home a white girl.

“We couldn’t help but notice that the girl you brought over for Sunday dinner was white, huh?” said Theresa Ludlow, explaining that they had nothing against white people per se, but that it was just interesting that their white son would want to date a white woman. “Court-ney? Is that how you pronounce her name? Of course you can bring home whoever you want, but she just seems very, uh, suburban. I don’t know if our families will have much in common, you know, with the whole us being white and them being white thing. I mean, what will your white grandmother say?” At press time, Theresa claimed it was difficult to understand her white son’s white girlfriend’s white accent.

[brucebocchi]

[lastforest]

[tervacious]

Somehow tumblr always manages to make things worse whenever they try to improve the design of the site, which now also looks worse.  Also it’s weird to cut your signature backdrop color loose for no reason but whatev

This is what happens when your website is essentially run by three geese in a trenchcoat.

[tervacious]

With no power comes no responsibility.  -Nina Paley

[pointnclick]

“don’t let the garment wear you.” why not. maybe i need a break

[amygdalae]

garment take the wheel

[tervacious]

The notorious doxxing site might have been the last stand for free expression online

This is a brilliant analysis of something I’ve been watching for only a few months.

I don’t personally understand the fear so many people have of free speech.  I don’t get it when women and girls cower in the face of mean words online, for example, I mean we’re the superior sex when it comes to using our words, yet I’m constantly reading often grown-ass women crying and running away from online forums because... I don’t know.  I can’t figure it out.  I’m not talking about people who choose to limit or not participate in toxic hatefests, I’m talking about people who claim victimhood and abuse and want things or other people shut down because they’re scared to assert themselves.  I’m not a fan of Kiwi Farms, but I’m a grownup who can fucking handle herself, I’m not sure why this degree of fear is such a thing.

So this article articulates the way those fears are manipulated by assholes who actually don’t have those fears because they have de facto power granted to them by those who absolutely want to control and censor speech and, most importantly, thought.  The idea this is all disconnected is naive.  It’s all one thing, with different groups of people attempting to leverage whatever for what they want, and if what YOU want is freedom from fear, honey, oh honey, there’s no such thing, and there’s no freedom to be found there.

I’m pretty much a free speech absolutist.  I guess the limit is shit like crimes being openly discussed so others will join in?  Plotting violence and ginning up violence?  Maybe that’s my limit.  But generally free speech and expression is DIRECTLY TIED TO FREE THOUGHT.  An excerpt:

As the major discussion forums make it impossible to discuss certain sacred cows (transgender ideology, virus vaccination, and other politicized topics), people have flocked to less moderated spaces where group think more easily sets in, growing insular communities untempered by the need to justify beliefs or opinions to interested onlookers. As Kaitlyn Tiffany noted in The Atlantic, those ejected from mainstream forums carry resentment about their treatment on more open platforms. Persecuting people by banning their speech is a potent recipe for distilling anger at the outside world.

and

Let’s look at the belligerents and put things in context. There is Kiwi Farms, a forum which publishes personal contact information and enables harassment, but which also collects and analyzes information ignored by the entirety of the media. There is Clara Sorrenti and friends, online drama personalities who are monetizing attention. There is Taylor Lorenz, Ben Collins, and the other representatives of the mainstream media who have repeatedly signaled the desire to control the dissemination of information online. Finally, there is Cloudflare, a critical provider of internet services. At a high level, this is a spat between an internet gossip group, an irresponsible journalist nursing a grudge, and an internet clown. At the ground level, this is potentially the end of open expression on the internet. If providers of backbone services can be moved away from neutrality once, they will be moved again. This will become a recurring tactic to drive unpopular speech off the internet.

 And an FYI, somehow this essay gets better from there.

Anyway, I know Cohn’s article isn’t directly about individual fears and interacting online, but I feel as if it strongly connects to a concern I have about, sorry not sorry, modern female cowardice.  I get not wanting to be abused, obviously, or being called names, or having threats levelled at you, but take precautions and take over spaces again.  The way girls have been harassed and bullied out of parks and playgrounds so they’re all herded obediently into organized spaces, not organized by themselves, where they’re again bullied into including boys in every aspect of their lives?  That’s a building block of cowardice, and tolerating it has bred fear of spaces THAT DO NOT FACTUALLY EXIST.  An internet forum is not a place.  So I don’t know, have a read.

Thanks to Nina Paley’s twitter for the link.

[tervacious]

I think it’s wild that Heather Heyering would randomly assert something like “men are better at tennis, period” and I’m like, better at WHAT about tennis, because I’d rather watch almost any female tennis player than any male tennis player.  Better at what, Heather?

Making the male the default of quality is not science, that’s just patriarchy.

[leng-m]

Lol, I just saw a post that was like, “If you have this belief, your favourite character would hate you.” Have we done it? Have we actually gone full circle? Our faves think *we* are problematic?

[tervacious]

The current Fashion Gods have decreed that LADIES don’t wear flannel in autumn because it “looks cheap”.  You know what to do.

[crystals-and-lavender]

[wahbegan]

The argument, however niche (it’s very niche) appearing for the first time in human history that people can and should be attracted to one another regardless of biological sex is a direct result of kids forming friendships, relationships, and entire communities and social circles with people they’ve never met online, resulting in a whole group of kids who think of people as disembodied concepts and selfies and personal posts. In this essay, I will-

[bodenor]

OP please keep writing

[vampireapologist-archive-deacti]

cows are so wild like here I am walking through a field surrounded by 30, 1200 pound animals who are Fully Convinced I am capable of killing them with my bare hands so they are dutifully cautious of me

but then sometimes they suddenly think “hey wait…maybe WE could kill HER” and they start getting uppity so I have to pick up a stick and walk toward them as if I could do anything about it and they think

“oh hm wait….she has a branch now……… … We wouldn’t stand a chance……”

[mrspankhurstsraspberryjam]

"I've always felt like a woman."

I understand you have a feeling but from the bottom of my bleeding uterus that feeling is not woman. You have a disquiet in yourself, I understand that, no one is questioning your having a feeling. What we are telling you is that feeling which torments you has been improperly labeled as woman and your quest must continue.

[the-rainbow-lesbian]

when you’re dying because of an unsafe pregnancy no amount of wealth, class, race, or being able-bodied will save you. you don’t have to add identifiers before “women” in order to care about abortion, ALL women are in danger because of roe v wade being overturned I am sick to death of the privileged woman boogeyman, it’s a distraction.

[the-rainbow-lesbian]

I have to clarify before someone inevitably takes an issue with this post.

I am criticizing people who use more disadvantaged women in posts as a dig at more privileged women as in “this doesn’t affect you and you don’t have the right to be personally upset about it” of course there are certain disadvantages that would hinder a woman from accessing an abortion but this is a woman’s issue, it’s not a race, class or a disability issue at its core those are intersections, it’s a women’s reproductive justice issue and the reason why I get so upset is because misogyny and women’s rights are not taken seriously on their own, it’s still very acceptable to call a woman misogynistic slurs where other slurs could get you fired, the fact is we can’t see how woman-hating restricting access to abortion is without having to include other issues to deflect from misogyny is very troubling, we can’t fight for women’s rights if we can’t even acknowledge misogyny.