It's international Women's Day, of course I had to write something :/

roma★

blake kathryn
we're not kids anymore.

if i look back, i am lost

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Not today Justin
Sade Olutola
RMH

ellievsbear
PUT YOUR BEARD IN MY MOUTH
hello vonnie
Today's Document
YOU ARE THE REASON
Monterey Bay Aquarium
styofa doing anything

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trying on a metaphor
Jules of Nature
$LAYYYTER
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@youngfeminism
It's international Women's Day, of course I had to write something :/
"I am going to wear this suit to protect myself from the toxic chemicals I am spraying on your food... but don't worry it is completely safe to eat."
The most descriptive posters to sum up my feelings about this appauling rulling. How long will women be forced to face their perpetrators?!
I have such deep respect for Malala's father. It's sometimes hard to understand because it's so easy to judge from the side of the fence like we do but it's quite challenging to choose to see your children as the same especially in third world countries where a lot of development of policies, laws and basic mentality still need to be implemented of how gender is perceived. Like the way Malala's father, even in the progression of the book, goes on to challenge tradition and his society of what raising a girl child as to his son is expected.
I think I'm doing well. I've unlearned a lot- more unlearning in process... The life we've been taught, the "right" and "wrong", the discernment of what womanhood really means from generational stereotypical female expectancies... straying away from things that people encourage and dare thinking our human capabilities are much bigger than our race, gender, skin color,nationality, status, prettiness and money. Okay this is too long already, but moral of this is: Get out of your head a bit because most of what you think aren't your thoughts and you need to develop independent perspective that is above tradition and ancient teachings to broaden your view on life because a lot of what we grow up learning is what holds us back!
Why I don't blame Beyonce for Cultural Appropriation!
I usually don't fall into the whole FOMO craze but my gut and all these sometimes overbearing voices in my head long so eagerly to join in the debate about the new Coldplay music video featuring Beyonce portraying a bollywood actress. It's almost a week since it's debut and the song titled "Hymn for the Weekend" managed to spark intense controversy accusing Beyonce of cultural appropriation. Now I'm an undeniable beyhive and I believe even for those of whom are not so enthusiastic about the Queen B will painfully agree that the video is beautiful, infact I would just like to give props to the director (on the low of course). But this is the part where I'm morally obliged to separate my position as a beyhive and cross over to the critic side of myself and address the seriousness of appropriating culture.
Coming to analysis of the video here's what I think. At first understanding, the video was shot in Mumbai. Pay attention to the cheaper options that could have been taken to alternately shoot the video in some location in New York or came up with some technical manipulation in the studio of some fake backgrounds or whatever, but no, this video was shot in the actual region of dedi people giving precise representation of the culture and beauty of it. We can at least give props for that respect. Also, given people's different views some argue that there may be a confusion between cultural appropriation and culture appreciation. Cultural appropriation according to the urban dictionary is the adoption or use of elements of one culture by members of a different culture usually by the predominant to the minority. The two can be quite frustrating in classifying the difference.
Albeit the argument that the music video denigrates the South Asian culture so deeply that it attempts to squeeze the many rituals and traditions in a mere 4 minutes is disrespectful to the culture itself is something I don't agree with because that implies no time will ever be great enough to present any culture, neither do Bollywood movies themselves in this case of reasoning.
Now that does not mean I don't think there's anything wrong in this video. Infact, India should have never been a thing, there are countless ideas that could have been applied as themes of the video that have nothing to do with flying out of their country or appropriating any culture for that matter. BUT one of my main problems is the fact that it's Beyonce who has to take the fall for this. It's her whose face is globally painted as the despicable *appropriater, not taking into account or giving full responsibility to all the parties that were involved in bringing a concept of a Bollywood movie star into life. No, not even Coldplay themselves. Infact I read this article where the band was only mentioned when referring to the song title. In this case, she's actually a victim. Number one, it's not her song- she's featuring, secondly, she did not come up with the concept and yes she did agree to it but that can be due to the level of conviction it was presented in. Eg. "Hey B, you'll be portraying this beautiful bollywood actress draped in Indian jewellery, basically selling yourself as a princess in this castle of India representing the art and culture" then BAM, Bey just got soled, wouldn't you? I mean there's nothing suspicious or hard-hitting that would need approval from her conscience from that.
Putting myself in the shoes of people of India, hell yes I'd be furious that some British boys and American songstress just came to my country, borrowed my culture and were able to get away with selling that content. At the end of the day that is someone else's culture, those clothes, that bindi that must've been fun to wear for a minute is something that most South Asian people cannot just take off at the end of the day or when the director yells "Cut"! On another hand, I do believe that borrowing from other cultures isn't just inevitable, it is potentially positive. We inherit so much from a whole vast of cultures that we're sometimes not aware. So much of that is evident on styles of fashion, food, music and dance. It's a common unconscious human exchange. Of course there are some aspects of culture too sensitive and religious that should be respected by the outsiders, and there are instances in the video that fall in that category as well as most moments that show appreciation hence I don't believe director Ben Mor would go about visually denigrating his own culture for the world's criticism. It was all in good intentions.
But I'm only a teenager with an opinion, feel free to school me on some convincing thought.
Author: Phoeby Montari
Not Gay, Just Baldheaded
Hi Maggy, I'm sorry I took so long to reply. I've recently decided to go bald and cut my hair, I know that raised your theory to a higher level. I never took into consideration the repercussions of my actions that are bound to lead to certain assumptions. I'm really not gay, bisexual or gender fluid. Yes I'm friends with gay individuals which is not unnatural to me and I don't own many skirts or dresses. Infact I don't like heels and wearing a bra is pretty mich a chore for me. I like boyfriend jeans, or as I like to call them, simply loose jeans to escape the unnecessary stereotypical connotation to a fit of fabric and I'll just get deeper into that on my next post. This basically summarizes the tone which society voices it's double standards and rejection of individualism especially pertaining to sexual orientation and the expectancy's of what you've identified as, because in the eyes of many people, elders, traditions- what you choose to identify yourself as is disregarded and dismissed as acts of evil, thus referring to homosexuality. And it's the undeniable reason to assumptions that I bring toward myself even before I cut my hair. There's always such a theory anyway of a woman or man who identifies as feminist or supports gay rights that they must be gay and I make it no easier on myself when I don't act insulted when confronted with such an allegation which then is assumed to be a confirmation to the question mark. But you see that's the thing, I'm not going to get angry or offended when I'm asked whether I'm gay because the minute we act in such expected accordance, we validate the stigma that being homosexual is some disgusting disease that as a human, one cannot and should not be associated with. I naturally feel obliged to put myself in the shoes of those individuals who have to face difficulties throughout their lives, who are forced to hide what they really are in fear of being judged and not accepted or even persecuted and jailed in countries like Zambia, and those who go around being called names or disowned and bullied because of an uncontrollable instinct that was born within them. I think it's been long enough and although we still have a long way to go, with so much more than the constitution legalizing gay marriage because there's so much more at war in the neighborhoods and homes of people beyond legal amendments, things that affect our way of living bigger than ourselves - religion, traditions and more effectively, mindsets. This is one of the topics that can never be overrated and overly covered, I wish more people would come forward and speak about this, people who will be able effect an influence over a broad audience and teach about homosexuality, gender issues and personally just telling people to let a girl walk by with a bald head, sneakers and whatever without being labeled without surety. Author: Phoeby Montari
It's so cool to see girls turn a blind eye to the norm and take lead, it is a leap year after all :) Would you be the one to #MakeYourMove and ask your crush out? Simply follow @closeup_sa and click the link on the bio and you could win a trip to #Thailand! And not just that, there are awesome prizes up for grabs every week!
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<@brandonnembhard > S/O to Brandon's brains.
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Rebels. There are vital rebels this world needs to be shaken by, to open people's minds to what they thought was wrong and see, just think for a minute, maybe *that isn't so bad, because society is scared of a lot of things painted as bad, society is uncomfortable with sharing power or love or jobs/land/respect... that's why there was/is racism, sexism, xenophobia etc. We inherit an unkind and biased spirit which only evidences unkindness to ourselves, our human specie.
Girls nowadays :)
I'm too lazy to fall asleep and I've been up writing my next article but on another note...I always feel the urge now and again to use my social platform to spread some activism especially about Feminism and I've decided that I'm gonna do that more often this New Year. {The HeForShe campaign is about making men feel comfortable in standing up and calling themselves feminists, which Watson powerfully highlighted by pointing out how few men she saw at a feminism rally once. It was the perfect way to extend a hand to both sexes to work on this issue.} #heforshe #activism #socialactivism #feminism #feminist #emmawatson
The first dimension of substantive equality requires a focus not simply on treating people in the same way, regardless of their gender, but on redressing women’s specific disadvantage and dismantling stereotypes. This entails a recognition of the interlocking nature of women’s disadvantage: how imbalances of power within the home and family radiate outwards into inequalities in the labour force and more generally in access to resources and public life. May 2016 be a better year of advances for women empowerment and gender equality :)
There’s a difference between a feminist and a man-hater!
it's crazy how misconceptions like this create a false impression about feminism which causes people to denounce feminism because the reality is there are certain "feminists" who preach the wrong movement, being hateful about men thinking it's feminism.