The Desk @washingtonshead - Tumblr Blog

codeblueberry

Not my circus but I've grown quite fond of its monkeys

+ bonus:

p0pipos

manhate menstruate misgender

riverlarking

don't forget to be subversive by doing exactly what society wants and expects you to

riverlarking

don't forget to be subversive by doing exactly what society wants and expects you to

macklesufficient

rb to give it up for laura hall and linda taylor

yapoholics-anonymous

"it's woman's responsibility to be assaulted correctly"

guooey

She's so perfect she just goes right back to doing her thing

mammalidentifier

Chinese zokor (Eospalax fontanierii). Despite their mole-like appearance, zokors are actually rodents, being closely related to blind mole rats and bamboo rats. But unlike other burrowing rodents, they dig using their claws and not their incisors!

They’re also really cute.

nudityandnerdery

Hey. Hey. Look at me. Eyes here, I need to tell you something important.

Anyone who tries to sell you on that "LGB without the T" bullshit is a fucking sell-out who wants to sacrifice a marginalized community to beg for scraps of approval from bigots who hate anyone who isn't straight only slightly less than they hate anyone who isn't cis. Anyone who tries to sell you on it is pretending that conservatives won't just shift targets to target the gay community after they've destroyed enough trans people.

Martin Niemöller did not write "First They Came..." just for fascists to pull the exact same "one community at a time" bullshit decades later.

Support and protect trans people. Community and solidarity is necessary. Anyone trying to convince you abandon another marginalized group, especially anyone who tries to turn you against that group, is a tool of bigots.

thesinisterspinster

Oh fuck you buddy. The t keeps trying to coersively rape homosexual women. Did you think we would just keep hanging out with you?

theonceandfutureharpy

I'll support and protect trans women from violence and employment/housing/medical discrimination, but you guys don't know the difference between "support and protect trans women from oppression" but "support and protect trans women from having their feelings hurt by being mediocre male athletes" and "support and protect trans women from being held accountable for rape and/or IPV.

brilliant-belladonna

I think consenting to sex you don’t actually wanna have is a real form of self harm but society will never recognize that bc if we do like a very large percentage of American housewives would see the inherent violence that undertones all heterosexual marriage

unaliveish

frances cannon

cam1lla

I don’t even think it’s accurate to be like “Neil Gaiman portrayed himself as the good guy but was secretly a monster” I think Neil Gaiman thinks he’s the good guy and that’s what’s scary. I think he still views himself as a scrappy 20 something year old misunderstood introvert trying to make it with just a wish and a story in his heart and I think that’s the problem. I think his refusal to grow the fuck up and get over himself is what caused his entitlement to others. Like, he has the most vile strain of Peter Pan syndrome imaginable. Women in the public eye often get smeared as immature for things like making art about difficult feelings they have or standing up for themselves against unfair or misogynistic criticism, but men in the public eye are seldom criticized for their very glaring, very dangerous immaturity and it is emboldening them and enabling them big time. Men in the public eye get to be charming, impish boys well into their middle age. Society coddles them. Society gives them the benefit of the doubt. Society blames the woman instead. Society makes excuses. Society is patient with them as they take their sweet time sorting things out that women are expected to have sorted out by the time we turn 30. Of course powerful men think they can do these things and get away with them! We so often allow them to!

preposterousblasphemy

furious-shebrew

violetsandshrikes

I met a girl when I was fresh out of high school in undergrad who frankly, annoyed me quite a bit, but I also had an inkling to continue to be compassionate to her given a few things about her life/background/family

I ran into her two years ago. Last week, her daughter turned 1. This girl, let’s called her “P”, is a really good example of why I never feel comfortable mocking trad wives

Her perfect trad husband, who was a shining young figure in the local religious community, volunteered in all sorts of groups, well loved in his workplace and everything else, beat her up at 1 month post-partum. I reached out to her after seeing her desperately asking for a stroller on a page, confused and slightly concerned knowing both of them came from wealthy backgrounds.

The reality for lots of tradwives living “perfect lives” is this: P was immediately ostracised. All the wealth of her husband and her family meant absolutely nothing if she wasn’t in favour and doing what she was told. Her child and her well-being didn’t matter. P, at 25 years old, was basically deemed an oopsie, and left on her own to figure out how to pay for herself, a baby, find housing, and every other task you can think of.

Having known many of these women (and supported many of these women), another factor most people don’t consider is this: they are intentionally raised to be helpless. When I immediately offered my support to P, she really needed it. This young woman needed to be guided through how to apply for government assistance, how to weigh up rentals and apply for them, how to apply for jobs, how to sign up for childcare. How to sign up for your own power and internet, and how to connect them.

It wasn’t that she was “stupid”, or incapable, or spoiled. While it looks like they’re being sheltered, in reality, these women are practically being held hostage. Sure, they might be allowed to learn things that are expected of them (see: basic cooking, baking, cleaning, child rearing, women’s bible studies, hosting, and so forth) but they are heavily controlled from family life into marriage life, and they are never given the opportunity or the reality of what many of us would consider basic adult tasks.

She’s doing okay now. Her daughter turned 1, is happy and healthy. They live frugally, but they have a roof over their heads and the essentials. I often babysit for her so she can attend counselling, or go to a woman’s support group. She is painfully aware that she has so much to learn about how to live as an adult.

I don’t envy tradwives, but I don’t find any joy in mocking them either. Even when they live the most picturesque lives, they’re also practically living a real life Jenga game. If (and often, when) it comes tumbling down, they’re screwed too, and they often have 0 skills to help themselves or find community (that again, isn’t carefully curated).

mumblingsage

My medieval and ancient ancestors watching me trying to charge my laptop and connect to WiFi: Ah, yes, she must feed her magic mirror on the telluric current and summon the spirits of knowledge from the aether.

My ancestors watching me proceed to doomscroll on Twitter: Alas! She is beguiled by the cruel babblings of the demons within the mirror; soon she will descend into melancholy from the things she has witnessed.