Day: December 12, 2018

bittersnurr:

technohumanlation:

emmersdrawberry:

bigbardafree:

the thing about being someone who’s never catcalled is that you start to wonder why like is it because im ugly???

and then you realize that youre judging your worth by whether or not you are objectifiable to a man and thats so fucked up like honestly its so fucked up 

but the worst part about the patriarchy is that it still sits at the back of your mind regardless like “nobody thinks youre pretty because they dont see you as a sex object” like somehow thats a desirable thing and it fucks me up

You’re either public property or completely invisible.

It sucks I related to this and it was finally put into words

Also I feel like it should be pointed out, it’s often not *just* the lack of sexual harassment. It often is combined with women gossiping about how they think you are ugly too. This is important because it’s not just about men, it’s about not being acceptable to women or being the designated “ugly friend”.

If you are a woman or dumped in that label as “close enough” your human worth is directly tied to your appearance. It’s not just men enforcing that. It’s not something you can avoid by sticking to women’s spaces and only being around girls.

Idk I have just had too many woman act like it’s disgusting I have self esteem problems from this but like, it’s not just guys lack of attention, it’s the fact women find me a fun target to beat up on to raise their own self esteem. But people will brush this stuff off as internalized sexism.

We have a major problem in general I think with this expectation this shit shouldn’t bother you because it is stupid. Like you shouldn’t worry about aging, you shouldn’t worry about fitting molds, you shouldn’t worry about how conventionally attractive you are… but rejecting that shit doesn’t make it go away. Society will still enforce it on you and if your self esteem isn’t good enough it will rip you apart. People shouldn’t have to feel guilty for caring about this shit when it has a DIRECT RELATION to how much of a person most people see you as.

One other thing I want to point out: how commonly sexual harassment is treated as only consisting of the “what, you can’t take a compliment?” catcalling variety.

And not so much the “you are such a disgusting freak, and we must loudly go into great detail about this at every opportunity” variations which tend to get thrown at marginalized people more. (Disability, sexuality, gender, you name it.) Which often seems to be far more gender neutral in terms of both targets and who is doing the harassing/assaulting.

Some pretty good discussion of a couple of people’s experiences with this, specifically influenced by disability:

Undesirable: Toxic Romantic Dreams, Disability, Sexuality and Relationships

And prompted by that post: Undesireability and sexual mockery (from autism meetups to high schools)

Instead, I got a series of messages that I was in fact a sexual being, but anything to do with my sexuality was gross and an object of mockery, or, to be used only for really fucked up fetishes for which I could become a fantasy object (but that was much later).

That type of sustained harassment can be brutal, and mess up your head longer term in some slightly different ways. Especially when it is coming from such a variety of your “peers”.

Theresa May’s Conservative Party triggers vote of no confidence in her leadership

wetwareproblem:

fandom-geek:

wetwareproblem:

janothar:

So this is happening. Can someone explain this bit to me?

She said a successful challenge against her would inevitably lead to her successor being forced to delay or even stop Brexit.

“One of their first acts would have to be extending or rescinding Article 50, delaying or even stopping Brexit when people want us to get on with it,” she said.

I thought that the EU basically said “You set this train in motion, we’re going where the tracks lead” and there’s roughly zero chance for Britain to do shit about it now?

According to what I saw from UK posters, everything that’s been done so far is fully reversible – mainly because the further in the rearview mirror the Brexit vote is, the more people are realizing it was a REALLY BAD IDEA. So they’ve been waffling and plotdding along slowly because any serious move they make in either direction is gonna piss off a lot of people.

But they can’t just SAY that, because they made a big deal about how Brexit was the best possible thing for the UK and absolutely NOT about racism and xenophobia, so they’re left in the awkward position of pretending that it’s still popular even as popular opinion keeps them from moving on it.

The critical question I’m left asking is: I’ve never seen a vote of no confidence in a party leader before. If it passes, does government fall or pass to her 2IC?

Ok so to break this up a bit, since I used to study UK politics and well, I’ve lived in England all my life so I kinda know the answers for this

@janothar – what May’s said is related to a recent ruling by the European Court of Justice. That is the court which decides cases on EU law (it’s commonly believed that the European Court of Human Rights is an EU court too, but it’s separate). 

Basically, after the Brexit referendum, the Supreme Court ruled that Parliament had to pass an act to invoke Article 50. The Tories wanted their government to be able to invoke it without Parliament, but we have a concept called parliamentary supremacy – basically that Parliament, not the Cabinet, are the ultimate rule makers in the UK.

So technically all we have to do to extend the deadline or stop Brexit is for Parliament to pass another act revoking the previous act.

And @wetwareproblem – votes of no confidence are two separate things which annoyingly have the same name. The first type, which is fairly rare and hasn’t happened since the Labour government of the 1970s, is parliament passing a vote of no confidence against the Cabinet. If it passes, that causes a general election. Which is kinda complicated, I imagine, by the Fixed-term Parliaments Act (2011) passed by David Cameron’s government. But not as complicated as the Tories calling their own election, as a new general election requires Parliament’s approval – and I imagine a vote of no confidence counts as exactly that.

But what’s happening at the moment isn’t that. This is a party vote of no confidence. Only the Tory MPs have caused this vote, and only Tory MPs get to vote in the secret ballot this evening. 

There’s not really a concept of second in commander for political parties over here – the closest you have is the party chairperson, but that’s it. So what will happen if Theresa May loses? The Tory party will have a leadership election, which is decided by Tory MPs. This is, terrifyingly, actually good – Leave voters actually see Jacob Rees-Mogg as their preferred PM, with Boris Johnson in second place.

Here’s two good articles from the New Statesman on potential Tory leaders – this article, from August, suggests that Johnson is unlikely as is Rees-Mogg, simply because most Tory MPs don’t want a hard Brexit. And this article published today has a profile on all of the most likely candidates if this does go to a leadership election.

Thanks for the info. I was aware of votes of no confidence against the government (we had one of those in 2011), I’ve just never seen one internal to a party before and wasn’t sure what happens if the PM is suddenly no longer the head of the majority party.

Theresa May’s Conservative Party triggers vote of no confidence in her leadership

While the guy’s description is kinda odd, immediately jumping to ”Cult!” is just offensive to both cult survivors and to poly people. ”Oh no,people not just dating everyone without standards while also happening to be dating more than 1 person, the humanity!”. Like, I could understand a ”wtf is he talking about?” kinda, because the phrasing is kind of weird, but looking at the interview for 5 seconds longer (or maybe… asking! instead of jumping to conclusions!)should clear that right up.

wetwareproblem:

lordhellebore:

fandom-is-for-pleasure:

I’m not saying this in order to berate you or anything of the sort, nonny, but I need to remind people that Ezra Miller specifically identifies as genderfluid: 

Miller publicly came out as queer in 2012, and today he tells me his gender identity is fluid. “I’m comfortable with all the pronouns,” he says. “I let he/his/him ride, and that’s fine.” (source) 

Which makes the rancid garbage in the notes of that post all the more goddamn reprehensible, particularly the turd who framed the whole thing as a ‘cishet man wanting to fuck multiple people.’ 

Thing is, nonny, not a single one of those initial people who screenshotted the interview, posted it and spread it to make fun of it would’ve taken even a second to try and understand his meaning or ask other people for clarification. Because they never approached Ezra Miller and his words with anything even remotely resembling GOOD-FAITH to begin with. To a particular brand of ‘rainbow regressive’ on here, Miller represents everything they rabidly hate. He was specifically targeted for slander about belonging to a ‘cult’ because he lies at the intersection of three currents of frothing hatred on here: 

  • he identifies himself clearly and openly as genderfluid, providing a public example for other genderfluid, nonbary, genderqueer people (something which is anathema to the type of wretched persons who can’t stand the sight of anything that provides proof of validity and acceptance for nonbinary / genderfluid / genderqueer people) 
  • he identifies himself clearly and openly as queer, championing the identity (and thus drawing the rage of the Cavalcade of Utter Fucking Shit that are the queerphobes on here – from radfems and other REGs to randos with piss-poor knowledge of their own community history)
  • he’s an openly polyamorous person, talking about polyamory and taking one of the brave, necessary steps that might lead to it being one day seen as equally valid as relationships based on monogamy (which, of course, cannot be allowed to stand by the individuals who loathe polyamory and poly people). 

A few years back, I would have been utterly shocked and unable to understand how people with LGBTQ+ identities could treat one of their own as badly as those miserable individuals treated Ezra in the notes of that post. But the cold and brutal truth is that being LGBTQ+ doesn’t actually insulate one from social-conservatism, particularly with a few identities slowly gaining acceptance in certain quarters of mainstream society. It’s very possible to be an LGBTQ+ person and be a social-conservative, only with an exception for one’s identity and a few adjacent ones. In this framework 

  • ‘gender as a spectrum’
  • queer people who resist assimilation 
  • respectability politics 
  • atypical relationships models 

are seen as something unacceptable and a source of anxiety, something to mock and attack. Particularly since, as far as a rainbow-regressive is concerned, us Weirdos, with our Weird Identities and Weird Relationship Models, are an active impediment when it comes to THEM being accepted by mainstream society.  

This right here. Because they don’t actually want to dismantle the system of oppression. They just want to belong on the ‘right’ side of it.

Four axes. He’s visibly and proudly Jewish.

mister-boss:

there’s not really much discussion of child neglect on here so i guess i have to do it

p l e a s e don’t shame neglect survivors for not knowing “basic” things like how to eat a balanced diet, when to go to the doctor, how to drive, etc. you know these things (usually) because a caring adult taught them to you. we didn’t have that. we often enter adulthood knowing jack shit about how to take care of ourselves. we know we’re missing information, and we feel so fucking lost.

it’s okay to, if you have a friend who’s experienced neglect, try and help them learn how to take care of themselves. saying things like “hey, do you think you could try to eat at least one vegetable per day?” or “that infection looks pretty bad, do you want to go to a doctor?” is genuinely helpful. but belittling us for not already knowing these things is completely unproductive and unnecessarily cruel.

don’t be a dick to survivors.

liberalsarecool:

nonasuch:

gallusrostromegalus:

sevdolo:

Yooooooo if you need ACA get on that shit!!

For the record? As a self-employed small business owner with a preexisting condition, my pre-ACA health insurace suuuuuuuuucked. My current plan actually provides substantially better coverage than the old one and costs half as much. I only wish I’d done it sooner– getting on the exchange was, tbh, entirely a spite-motivated action on my part, and probably the sole positive impact of 45′s presidency on my life.

Please boost. ACA/Obamacare sign-up for next year ends December 15.

luckystampede:

daisenseiben:

ethereal-insight:

tilthat:

TIL the Han Dynasty was founded by a sheriff who was transporting convicts when several escaped. Knowing the punishment for this was death, he freed the rest and organized many into a rebel band, eventually going on to help overthrow the ruling Qin Dynasty and install himself as Emperor.

via reddit.com

Talk about rolling with it

You ever fuck up so bad you overthrow a Chinese emperor?

Oh it’s worse. He wasn’t just a sheriff, he was a conscription officer. He was leading 900 men who he had press-ganged into military service. They hadn’t escaped, he was just a day late in delivering them. The punishment for being late was death!

So like he had been around the countryside basically kidnapping farmers and craftsmen and the like, to force them to fight for the emperor! Then, when he realized he wasn’t gonna make deadline, he was just like “Whelp. You guys can go home, or we can make sure this doesn’t happen to anyone else.” And most of them decided to stick with the guy who had just kidnapped them, because fuck the emperor.

I wonder what the emperor thought would happen? Like he’s having dudes kidnap people and train them to fight, then if the kidnapper is LATE, he’s supposed to just show up for his death anyway? There’s honor, and then there’s stupid. This guy was not stupid.