‘Kids are gross’: on feminists and agency

imgetting2old4diss:

pokabrows:

bogleech:

fullten:

astrobleme22:

this is a good read

 “Oscar gets more unsolicited comments about how cute he is, more uninvited pinches on the cheek and ruffles of the hair and demands for affection from strangers, than anyone else I know. I made a point, from when he was very young, of teaching him to express his discomfort: he says ‘I want some space’; he says ‘I feel shy’; he says ‘I don’t want you to touch me’; he says ‘I don’t like that, please stop.’ These statements from him are almost always laughed at, and then ignored, until I step in on his behalf.”

Kids no matter how small are fully conscious people who can have a strong sense of being patronized and disrespected. I remember being barely two and furious at how adults would talk about me like I couldn’t understand or wasn’t listening, then talk to me like they might talk to an animal.

This is especially important to remember for disabled kids, as they may have greater difficulty expressing that they are uncomfortable in a given situation.

If any one even stood next to my eldest child and he didnt want them to he would tell me ,tell them or make an ungodly screech at them .He has autism and will let you know one way or another if you have disspleased him.if you talk about him or his brother he will ask you to stop or tell you to go to another room. He hates being talked at or talked down to he has always been like this even when he was non-verbal he would sign that he didnt like some thing or some one thrn scream at them .

More parents (and other adults) really need to take that kind of clear communication of discomfort seriously, and not decide it’s just a “behavior” in the infuriating sense.

I would tell people to leave me alone or put me down NOW (or cry and yell before I could), and my parents just said “fair enough, the kid doesn’t like it”. Shame more don’t respond that way :/

‘Kids are gross’: on feminists and agency

‘Kids are gross’: on feminists and agency

pokabrows:

bogleech:

fullten:

astrobleme22:

this is a good read

 “Oscar gets more unsolicited comments about how cute he is, more uninvited pinches on the cheek and ruffles of the hair and demands for affection from strangers, than anyone else I know. I made a point, from when he was very young, of teaching him to express his discomfort: he says ‘I want some space’; he says ‘I feel shy’; he says ‘I don’t want you to touch me’; he says ‘I don’t like that, please stop.’ These statements from him are almost always laughed at, and then ignored, until I step in on his behalf.”

Kids no matter how small are fully conscious people who can have a strong sense of being patronized and disrespected. I remember being barely two and furious at how adults would talk about me like I couldn’t understand or wasn’t listening, then talk to me like they might talk to an animal.

This is especially important to remember for disabled kids, as they may have greater difficulty expressing that they are uncomfortable in a given situation.

‘Kids are gross’: on feminists and agency

‘Kids are gross’: on feminists and agency

bogleech:

fullten:

astrobleme22:

this is a good read

 “Oscar gets more unsolicited comments about how cute he is, more uninvited pinches on the cheek and ruffles of the hair and demands for affection from strangers, than anyone else I know. I made a point, from when he was very young, of teaching him to express his discomfort: he says ‘I want some space’; he says ‘I feel shy’; he says ‘I don’t want you to touch me’; he says ‘I don’t like that, please stop.’ These statements from him are almost always laughed at, and then ignored, until I step in on his behalf.”

Kids no matter how small are fully conscious people who can have a strong sense of being patronized and disrespected. I remember being barely two and furious at how adults would talk about me like I couldn’t understand or wasn’t listening, then talk to me like they might talk to an animal.

‘Kids are gross’: on feminists and agency

fierceawakening:

yamino:

zohbugg:

shrineart:

teaboot:

sodomymcscurvylegs:

hexmaniacciaran:

gomeandyou:

lesbianspaceprincess:

feathersmoons:

goshawke:

lemonsharks:

melancholic-wings:

kramergate:

curtis-ballard:

kramergate:

Protip for men: if marriage is a horrifying concept for you and you think it is an evil trap, do not buy a ring and ask a woman to marry you

I’m way over seeing radical feminist bullshit on my dash. This isn’t even social justice or a real issue.

sorry that not marrying someone you dont loathe is radical feminism i guess?

women: don’t propose or get married if u don’t like the thought of marriage

men: what kind of sjw fuckery

the other bit that this implies is:

If you like your wife, act like it. Even around your friends. Be open and honest about liking your wife, liking spending time with her, and not being resentful of the shared work of building a household. Let your buddies know you can’t hang out with them because you’d rather be home with your wife, whom you like, because she is your legit bff, even though you know your buddies are gonna mock you for it.

Stand up to your buddies. Tell them mocking isn’t cool and you don’t want them to do it anymore. Challenge the other men in your life to be better men.

That is what “don’t get married if you think marriage is an evil trap” implies to men who are married. And while it’s all completely reasonable I imagine that it’s scary as fuck when it’s just so much easier to har de har har the little woman’s such a nag, ain’t she, don’t we all hate being married so much? with other men.

In that context, “don’t get married if you think marriage is an evil trap” is kindof a radical statement.

The number of guys I work with who are engaged who started pulling the “uh oh, life over soon, har har” shit that I have completely shut down with a simple “well if you don’t want to get married, then don’t”…*sigh* And they’re just like, hem, haw, welllll if I don’t then she might not stay with meee, which I respond to with “well, sounds like you need to have a pretty serious and honest conversation with your fiancee about your feelings then” and then the *panic!* look…When you remove that easy “hah hah ball-and-chain” narrative, watch the reaction. Some of them (to a female friend) will mumblingly admit that they love their fiancee and are excited to be married. Others…all you get is fear.

That’s the disservice we do men by refusing to teach boys how to explore their emotional needs. It hurts everyone. I watched three male friends walk into marriages I can tell they weren’t ready for and didn’t want, just because it was expected and they had no tools for emotional self-examination. Two of those marriages are (shockingly) in crisis, a couple years later. One has kids involved now. It’s more than a little heartbreaking. The marriages I see that are working? Are the guys with the emotional maturity to talk to their wives and who don’t care if everyone knows they’re in love with them.

SERIOUSLY. 

My friend is getting married this summer and when I congratulated her fiance on their engagement he said to me “Yeah well you know, women. This is what they want so you have to bite the bullet.” and my other friend’s husband who was sitting next to him laughed and agreed. If this is how you feel, don’t get married. Don’t propose. Just…. Don’t. Do it. Any of it.

Straight people think that doing things you really don’t want to do – like marriage and having kids – is normal cos they’re still stuck in a fucking 19th century mindset.

It’s why I know my best friend got a good one, he’s open about how much he loves her and he’s excited to be getting married and regularly contributes ideas and has his own input, it’s nice to see

It filters through as well. Even being gay, a lot of my straight friends don’t understand why I spend so much time with my husband. Because I love him? Because I enjoy his company? Because he’s my best friend? I can’t count the amount of straight people that have told me that they think it’s “weird” that my husband and I spend so much quality time together. The only person who understood was my mom, whose response was: “If you love someone and genuinely enjoy their company, why WOULDN’T you want to spend your free time with them?!”

How can anyone look at their impending marriage and think ‘oh no, it’s all over now’ like???? I’ve only felt so close to so many people in my life, but those small few were like?? I’d wake up in the morning excited to be awake just to look forward to SEEING them. I’d catch myself with this stupid idiot grin in broad daylight just THINKING ABOUT BEING AROUND THEM. I’d sleep easy with them in my head, shitty days became perfect once I spoke to them. THAT’s how I imagine feeling again someday. I think about feeling that way for someone again and it’s like the whole future opens up. Marriage is finding your best friend in the whole wide world and wanting to have a sleepover every single day, and to agree to it and then go around groaning like your freedom is being stolen is a HUGE disrespect. If you have the freedom to share your life with anyone you like and you throw it around like baggage you really can’t expect it to grow, can you? You gotta care about yourself a little more than that I think

All of this.

Not to mention this mentality makes it’s way TO THE DAY OF THE WEDDING. How many weddings have we seen with something like this:

Like what kind of toxic mentality do you have to have to say this as the bride is about to walk down the aisle and marry someone who it’s now suggested doesn’t even want to be there?? How is this cute? How is this supposedly charming? This is supposed to be the person you love and want to be with! And not to mention that you send this down the aisle with a small child (the ring bearer or the flower girls)…I have a special loathing for things like this. 

Holy shit I didn’t know that was even a thing.

This reminds me of a study I read about years ago with statistics on happiness/stability in relationships of people of various genders/orientations, and straight people were at the very bottom. (And lesbians were at the top! Not a huge surprise, given that women are generally more inclined to communicate and work out emotions and issues.)

This was a big thing with an old friend group that played Magic. Most of them were straight men and they would joke like “I finally got away from my wife and I get to do Nerd Man things” and I was always like “wait, why doesn’t she play too?”

I don’t think it’s at ALL a coincidence that there are a lot more women at the other store I play at now.

Still not as many, but more. Several of whom, omg, come with their husbands and have fun.

angry-old-asian-man:

allyonthego:

I keep seeing these posts about how sad or upsetting it is to see CHILDREN who identify as ace. So this is a friendly reminder to all my ace minors who may need to hear it today.

1. You are NOT sad, and no one has a right to be upset by your identity.
2. You do not need to explain, to an adult person or anyone else, what you consider sexual attraction, or why you think you are not experiencing it. No one has the right to ask you to question your own identity.
3. You do not need to listen to anyone trying to convince you you are probably more gay or more straight, or anyone trying to change the way you identify in any other way.
4. Asexuality is not about whether you have had or are having sex. If you self-identify as asexual, that is not you sexualizing yourself, and you are not harming yourself by taking on a label that MIGHT change in the future. and don’t ever let anyone convince you otherwise. 
5. You are not required to keep an open mind that your orientation may change. It MIGHT change, and if it does, i hope you can welcome and enjoy whatever you are feeling when it arrives. But you aren’t required to participate in the rituals of dating, crushes, or experimenting just to prove that it’s really NOT what you want. 

I am a firm believer in self-exploration, and obtaining self-knowledge through questioning what we know about ourselves, and the world. But the way ace kids are constantly expected to provide answers for how we are the way we are, and what it means, and how we’re really really open to being something else, is just disgusting. It does more to turn kids AWAY from relabeling or reexamining themselves.

If you’re a minor, and you ID as ace, then you’re ace. You’re not broken, or alone, you’re not wrong, and you don’t need to answer for it.

Actually if anything, the adults are sexualising you for being so meddly with what you do with your own junk.

katisconfused:

gothschizo:

gothschizo:

people always talk about edgy 13 year olds saying they have a mental illness to look cool as if that started with tumblr but like.. they’ve always done that…… they’ve literally always done shit like that. and overall increased access to mental health resources is an overwhelmingly good thing. plus if someone’s pretending to have an illness for attention they could probably use those resources anyways

the idea of the “teenager who lies about mental illness for attention” is essentially entirely a myth. i’m absolutely aware there are kids who say they have schizophrenia when they don’t, but i think them doing that is a lot more complicated than “they want to look cool online”. it’s often them recognizing the onset of mental illness of some kind and processing it through the only lens they have, which is media portrayals.

and behaviour like that CAN often be a “cry for attention”, but that’s something that needs to be taken seriously. people discredit a lot of things young people do (especially self destructive behaviours or self harm itself) as being something they’re just doing for attention, but that’s ridiculous because someone being in a situation where they need help enough they’re willing to hurt themselves to get it IS a real problem. attention seeking behaviour is a symptom.

it’s really surreal to see people act like this because like I’m 28. You know what was in when I was 14 and getting online? Emo.

lol this being new. Oh no people aren’t going to therapy? They used to promote self harm
back when I was a teen thank god that shit never worked for me but
plenty of friends got frequently triggered because it was the hot edgy
thing but thankfully I don’t see that much anymore.

this could be worse. Like, a lot worse.

I find this theme even weirder in a lot of ways, after growing up during the “Institutionalized” Era.

It just seems like too many people will pull any reason they can out of their asses to dismiss and dehumanize kids. (See also: “glorifying mental illness”.)

Christians who celebrate Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur a growing trend

thebibliosphere:

animatedamerican:

imstronglikeanamazon:

jewish-mccoy:

littlegoythings:

I am SO SICK  of this appropriative crap. If you want to be Jewish – convert. But as a gentile, you are NOT entitled to our cultural practices, much less to distort them.

this is disgusting 

this is like if we took your most important holidays out of context and celebrated them with no idea of what they meant

get fucked if you do this

This may be one of the most offensive disgusting things I’ve read that wasn’t about literal Nazism.

They are taking our most holy most sanctified days and appropriating, bastardizing, and corrupting them.

Reading this article made me feel physically ill.

If you want to practice holidays the way Jesus did, then you’d have to be Jewish (in which case you shouldn’t really care how Jesus celebrated). But don’t fool yourself into thinking that you can fulfill the commandments as they’re written in the Torah because you literally can’t.

If you are not Jewish you are not obligated, nor allowed, to fulfill mitzvot because you have already broken the covenant.

But honestly? Thats besides the point. This horrific display of appropriation goes too far. They said in this article that, and I’m paraphrasing, ‘sometimes, someone will bring a shofar for fun’. The shofar is a sanctified instrument blown for very specific reasons in very specific ways at very specific times. Just doing it because you can is inappropriate.

They pick and choose which parts of the holidays they want to practice. They want to practice like Jesus, but their sukkot are actual buildings, resorts or hotels, ignoring the important party which is to be put woth nature. They say they want to fulfill the commandments as they are written, but not really.

They think thay they can get away with stealing our culture and our religion. Well they can’t.

TL;DR:
if you’re not Jewish you are always more than welcome to come and respectfully observe our practices, but you don’t get to choose a handful and say that they’re yours now.

@imstronglikeanamazon wrote: “If you are not Jewish you are not obligated, nor allowed, to fulfill mitzvot because you have already broken the covenant.”

THIS IS FALSE.  If you are not Jewish, you are not obligated (nor allowed in most cases) to fulfill most mitzvot because the covenant never applied to you to begin with.  Non-Jews are not considered to have broken any covenant by default, and it is tremendously unjust to say so.

That said: it should go without saying that it is also tremendously inappropriate for Christians to celebrate Jewish holidays, and it would be inappropriate even without the long history of Christian persecution of Jews for celebrating these selfsame holidays.

They want to practice like Jesus

Here’s like, a wild and radical thought for them then, maybe, like idk, feed the poor, care for the homeless, protest injustice and stand with the oppressed, love thy neighbor and stop being such a fucking shitheel blights upon humanity and actually practice what Jesus was supposed to have said and done instead of whatever the fuck else they are doing, cause it sure as shit ain’t the teachings of Christ.

Christians who celebrate Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur a growing trend

The “born this way” narrative falls apart due to four (4) distinct failures

gryphyl:

packbat:

fistarnius:

1. It is not actually an effective argument for dissuading homophobes or transphobes. Take a look at the developmental disability community for some examples of what oppressors do when we’re born this way.

2. It contradicts the idea of actively introspecting to discover your sexual orientation and/or gender identity, invalidating anyone who didn’t just know automatically.

3. It implies that our inability to change is the only good reason to accept us, and by extension implies that we ought to change if we could. Therefore, it actually reinforces that notion that there’s Something Wrong With Us, rather than challenging it.

4. It erases the experiences of people whose queer identities were developed through trauma, who were not in fact born this way.

I might have been born this way, but it doesn’t actually matter. There’s nothing wrong with how I am. My identity does not need to be excused, my identity needs to be respected.

5. It invalidates people with fluid identities and perpetuates the idea that someone whose identity has changed over time was previously faking it.

6. Some people do see their sexuality or gender as a choice, and they should be respected regardless. Choosing to differ from social norms is not a bad thing in and of itself.

katsgf:

one of my best friends is a bisexual woman who used to identify as a lesbian, and when she realized that she’s actually bisexual she was really scared about telling people because she feared backlash and rejection. but for her, the bisexual label is really important and she took the most amount of comfort in it. she initially identified as a lesbian because she couldn’t conceive of being attracted to men and women simultaneously, and she needed a way to articulate that she likes women. similarly, lesbians who have once identified as bisexual probably needed a way to state that they like women but didn’t know that it was possible for them to like women and /only/ women. we have to ensure that questioning wlw who are moving between labels and figuring out who they actually are for the first time feel safe and comfortable in doing so.