Unearthed on the edge of the Arctic, she is the only woman so far found in an otherwise all-male necropolis, buried in a cocoon of copper and fur.
This haunting 12th century woman is a member of an unknown hunting and fishing civilisation that held sway in the far north of Siberia – with surprising links to Persia.
Accidentlally mummified and probably aged around 35, her delicate features are visible, the green tinge on her face being the traces of the pieces of a copper kettle that helped preserve her in her permafrost grave.
She has long eyelashes, a full head of hair – and impressive teeth.
Bronze temple rings were found close to her skull, wrapped inside animal skin – possibly reindeer – and birch bark that cocooned her.
Like other human remains, the medieval mummy’s feet were turned towards nearby Gorny Poluy River, a fact seen as having religious significance. Read more.
… okay yes this is legit fascinating but
ffs CAN WOMEN EXIST WITHOUT “BEAUTY” AUTOMATICALLY BEING PART OF THE CONVERSATION AROUND THEM OR IS THAT NOT AN OPTION EVEN WHEN THEY’RE CENTURIES DEAD
Reminded again with my tag commentary there of something I’ve been having to think about lately.
I might not be nearly as grouchy about some things by now, if I hadn’t spent over a decade living somewhere that the demographics skew heavily toward one group of people who want to give me problems. With multiple excuses to choose from.
And no, I am really not imagining that. Nor that the atmosphere has gotten more hostile over the past 5 years or so. To the point that my health has been suffering–sometimes very directly, and not just on the really blatant level of Dr. Lazy Pennypinching Racist before. It’s not at all good for my mental health either, on an ongoing basis. And I am still almost hesitant to admit that, thanks to some earlier abuse.
Too often it just feels like being stuck in middle school in a really toxic system 24/7 now, and I really do not have the spoons to get out and deal with it much. It’s just not a good situation.
And there doesn’t seem to be that much I can reasonably do about it right now. Besides remind myself that this is not just me being some kind of terrible person to keep running into shitty behavior. When I have pretty consistently tried to treat other people with some basic respect. It’s really not all on me. And I’m not necessarily in the wrong for letting it get to me after a while. Where have I heard that before? Hmm.
I mean, I recognized something was off when we were in Stockholm and I found myself that impressed at not getting shoved or yelled at on the street even once in the space of almost a week. That should be a normal amount of shoving and yelling (and rude fucking stares from strangers) to encounter out in public. But it impressed me at the time, because it wasn’t my normal day to day expectation–and things have gotten worse since.
Reminded again of Dave Hingsburger’s Enough In Atlanta. I may not have spent much time in Atlanta specifically, but yeah that’s a lot closer to my previous base expectations of (bare minimum) acceptable public behavior.
Maybe when we turned our backs or left the store, or crossed the street, they said or did something unkind. I hope not, but if that did I’m thankful they waited until I was gone. I’m thankful that they recognized that what they were going to say or do would be hurtful and decided to wait on being mean until I was well away.
“Don’t actively cause strangers out in public problems–no seriously wtf is wrong with you?!” is really not too much to expect.
The person engaging in microaggressions was unable to stop themselves from attacking and holding themselves in a civil manner even for that period of time. It was urgent and imperative they remind you of their status and yours.
Think about that – they are so fully committed to dehumanizing you, that short period of time, or situation (“We are strangers walking down the street- the default assumption is to LEAVE ME ALONE”) was too much of a burden for them to stop themselves from having to spew shit to remind you of who they are and who they think you are.
Yeah, that’s just not normal behavior, no matter how socially acceptable it seems to be in some settings. Kind of worrying when you realize that you are now expecting to encounter some display(s) of hostility whenever you go out in public.
I really would like to somehow get myself enough healthier so I could reasonably GTFO and hopefully into a less hostile situation. (And not, you know, just roll over and die. Wish that were just hyperbole.) That’s the tricky part right now, of course. And I have been getting more than a little bummed about it lately. But, trying to figure out some kind of feasible strategies here.
Reminded of this one from earlier this year, after a couple of reblogs with commentary touching on abusive behavior, microaggressions, and invalidation. (Plus my tag commentary on one of them.)
Apparently I needed another reminder that objecting to dealing with this kind of behavior is totally reasonable, and it’s not something anyone should just be expected to put up with without complaint.
But, also? If I were just being paranoid about it and imagining all these unpleasant interactions, and looking for microaggressions where none exist? If–as in one example I ran across looking for this post, which really reminded me way too much of middle school–that flying cigarette butt had hit me by accident and those guys were really laughing at something totally unconnected?
You’d think that in that case, I would have just kept imagining hostility on that trip to Stockholm. (Or when I’ve been back home and people were just letting me go about my business like a normal human being, for that matter. Or…) But, I went a whole week without anybody yelling unintelligible stuff out of a car at me, or shooting filthy looks/snickering at me just for walking down the street, or anything else of that nature. It didn’t happen.
If I were really that “oversensitive” and looking for innocuous stuff to complain about, you’d think I’d find plenty wherever I go and in pretty much every situation. That really has not been the case. Ever.
I mean, this is another of those things that existing PTSD and the history of dismissal a lot of us are working from can actively make worse. It can be way too easy to quadruple guess your own perceptions, and not feel like you have much/any room to complain even if you do know deep down that this stuff is just not right and you don’t deserve it.
And there are unfortunately more than a few grown adults around who are counting on these dynamics, yeah Tying back in with the commentary that got me thinking, and also very much relevant to a lot of lateral aggression.
PSA if you need to take a self-care vacay from political stuff, news, or anything else remotely intense & heavy then that’s SO okay whether it’s a weeknight or even a couple years.
Even just keeping abreast of all that stuff is WORK and if we’ve been made to feel like we have to keep pace in order to be radical then that’s not really radical, that’s more like internalized capitalism or flat-out ableism.
I’m definitely saying this as much for myself as for anyone else. See ya’ll on the soft side with my sloth vids 💖
There is a massive difference between expressing your discomfort with dating women because it is objectively, numerically harder to find partners, and socially much more difficult to walk down the street or get an apartment or go to the grocery store in a relationship with a woman, and sexually more difficult to learn about the kinds of sex you want to have with other women and even get access to information about safe sex, and how those have impacted your dating choices and discuss some sadness around that (a very, very common problem, one major reason “bi women always end up with men and therefore don’t experience homophobia” is so wrong because that RESULT itself is often due to how those women are impacted by homophobia and how it manifests wrt their sexualities and dating choices) and saying, “I am always in straight relationships and it makes me feel Less Queer” and expecting lesbians to bend over backwards to express how that’s so valid and how we are so sorry people don’t harass or stare at you when you walk down the street with your partner. Of course sometimes the wires get crossed, and one message is expressed as another, but the whole trend of focusing on m/f relationships as valid sites of Queer Love is so silly when those relationships have always been legally validated, and it does absolutely no good to people in same gender relationships, who desperately need prioritizing and access to resources- including bi women!
The second message is being deeply misunderstood by the lesbian community.
When bi women reference “not feeling queer”, they’re not saying, “gosh, all this straight privilege is sure getting me down! I wish I could have it AND be included in the lesbian community! ”
They’re saying, “I am suffering from severe effects of oppression even when I am in relationships that are perceived as straight.
“And there is so little acknowledgment of this in the queer community that it not only means the problem isn’t getting addressed,” (like the fact that less than 1% of LGBT grant money goes to bi-specific issues), “but it also makes the psychological effects of the oppression much worse.
“To the point that I don’t even have the words to explain this to you, and you don’t have the information to put it together.”
The repeated message that bi/pan/omni/ply people are only oppressed/“actually queer” when we’re in same-gender relationships is a huge part of the constant erasure of bi experiences.
That erasure contributes both to the fact that bisexuals are consistently poorer, more suicidal, more likely to be mentally ill, and more likely to experience relationship violence and sexual assault than our gay and lesbian peers.
(Same thing goes for aces, for that matter. People say, “well why would anybody know you’re ace on the street, you aren’t oppressed unless you ‘look SGA’.”
For example, 25% of bisexuals in the US are on food stamps; around 13% of gay men and lesbians are.
(This is actually worse than it sounds, because there are also more bisexuals – so it’s a larger percentage of a larger group.)
If the only kind of oppression you can see is whether someone can marry their partner and how people react to them on the street, you leave out most of what gay people experience as well as the rest of us.
A lesbian who breaks up with her girlfriend doesn’t suddenly stop being oppressed. A lesbian who puts on lipstick and goes shopping alone doesn’t suddenly stop being oppressed.
For that matter, a passing, gender-conforming trans person doesn’t suddenly stop being oppressed.
Passing as a cis and straight person doesn’t even mean any of those folks will feel safe on the street.
Cutting our oppression down to “how likely are you to get assaulted or harassed on the street” is handy for gatekeeping all sorts of people. But it screws absolutely everybody over.
I didn’t realize how much amazing commentary people had added on to this on the notes until I happened to see virgodura’s dissenting reply just now: "there’s nothing queer about being a cis woman in relationship with a cis man. Grow up.”
So I’m glad for that because all the commentary I had missed looks fucking awesome, and I’m looking forward to reading it in detail.
But this is also hilarious to me because I’m literally seeing this as I’m in the middle of a discussion with two other bi people, one of whom is a cis woman, about what’s different about being bi vs straight. ( @ellainflight and @rivergst)
Like, specifically, how it is VERY different to be a bi cis woman in a relationship with a cis straight man (never even mind with a cis bi man!) than to be a straight cis woman in the same relationship.
Because what I hear from every bi cis woman I’ve talked to in that situation is:
* the gay people around you consistently say horrible, horrifying things about bi people, to the point that a lot of these women don’t come out to them as bi
* (this is part of why something like 23% of bisexuals are out to the important people in their lives, even though a pretty high percentage of gay people are out to at least the important people in their lives)
* the straight people around you can tell that you are violating heteronormativity, but they can’t put it into words, and they FUCKING HATE IT.
* what this ends up meaning is that you are constantly given very clear and intentional messages that what you are is wrong, even though they may consciously assume you’re straight
* I’ll do detailed examples later, when my Tumblr app isn’t acting up and it’s not 1am. But it’s very similar to being a stealth, passing trans person.
* Specifically, you’re surrounded by people who are actively pressuring you to pretend to be both cis and straight, who constantly make sure to let you know that if they figure out what’s “off” about you, you’re totally fucked.
Tying back in with the commentary that got me thinking, and also very much relevant to a lot of lateral aggression.
Urocyon's Jaunts 2.0 
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