I just did some reading about men’s rights activists and I’m a little freaked out. What are your thoughts?
I don’t want to paint all men’s rights activists with the same brush, but most of what gets labeled as men’s rights activism tends to be a very crude form of…
On the Difference Between Good Dogs and Dogs That Need a Newspaper Smack
Imagine, if you will, a small house, built someplace cool-ish but not cold, perhaps somewhere in Ohio, and inhabited by a dog and a lizard. The dog is a big dog, something shaggy and nordic, like a…
(Source: oldchristinathena)
so i got called a “feminazi” today for the first time.
Its amazing how a patriarchy has hacked “feminist” and “nazi” together to attempt to smear those who are fighting against everything that nazi’s stood for and what society perpetuates in its own sneaky ways.
There have been many, many views of my post on white silence, many re-blogs, and much discussion, and I just want to clarify a few things:
I am not calling for “commentary” from my white friends about issues of race. I am not calling for my white friends to tell me that they understand what it is…
Patricia Heaton, star of ABC’s The Middle, high-tailed it off of Twitter recently, presumably because she could not defend the nasty and misogynistic insults that she lobbed at Sandra Fluke. She also encouraged her “Tweatons” to lob at Ms. Fluke.
Unfortunately for her, in connection with one of my posts on Oink-Gate, I took a screenshot of her Twitter stream. Here it is:
Sorry, Patricia. You can run away from your words, but you cannot hide from them. The Internet is forever.
On blackface, but applicable to many, many other things as well.
(via 14kgoldnyc)
Wow, accidentally deleted my original post. Reblogging so I can keep it in my archives.
——
As defined by urban dictionary, the friendzone is…
“When you are expected to support a girl you really like while she searches for a smarter, richer, and more handsome boyfriend. There is little you can do without feeling like a dick. All in all, one of the meanest things a girl can do, whether they mean it or not.”
and ”The perennial location of nice guys everywhere.”
Although this hypothetical situation could work both ways, friendzone is almost always applied to a man who is rejected by a woman. Therefore, there is something inherently unequal, something inherently sexist about the term “friendzone”. But what and why?
From my experience, this is what friend zone is. A “nice guy” pursues a woman, but isn’t forward with his intentions from the get-go like, say, a “jerk”. The woman is pleased to see a man who is interested in her not as a sexual object but as a human being and wishes for things to stay that way. The man is not satisfied with seeing the woman as a human being because being “expected to support a girl” is a bad deal if she’s not putting out.
Before I delve into the sociological aspects of this, I just want to point out that ”friendzone” is no more pleasant for a woman than it is a man. First, that is to say unrequited love works both ways, but the person who doesn’t return affections is considered mean only when she’s a woman. And second, what option does the woman have in a traditional “friendzone” situation? Just stop talking to a close friend to avoid “leading him on”? In high school, I found out my best friend of 2 years liked me. Having to tell him I didn’t feel the same way and being immediately ex-communicated via Facebook status (“Thanks for wasting my time”) was one of the worst things that ever happened to me. Were our two years of friendship invalid because I didn’t want anything more? Was all our time together really wasted because there was no hypothetical pay off?
Guys who do this and claim to be “nice guys” are the worst misogynists because of their sense of entitlement toward a woman. They make investments in property and expect their dividends. They are fake friends. They are selfish. And they will jump at the chance to vilify you and victimize themselves when their attempts at manipulation don’t work. Clearly, “friendzone” is the remnant of a phenomenon that has plagued women since the beginning of time: women are not independent creatures. Our love lives exist only in the context of a man’s desire. When we make independent decisions, we are subject to a host of derogatory terms. “Slut” is how we vilify a woman for exercising her right to say “yes”. “Friendzone” is how we vilify a woman for exercising her right to say “no”
They claim they are not a feminist site as the reason why they post “controversial” stuff, which is fair enough, if their business model is better served by distancing themselves from feminism, I believe it’s their prerogative. However, Jessica Coen had no problem being …
- Don’t tone police. It is NOT your right to dictate how someone should react to their oppression.
- Don’t demand a detailed explanation.* You’re basically asking the person to justify their call out. It’s exhausting, many resources are available, and often this is just a way to try and…
From the article:
Clear education about and access to contraception reduces the number of unwanted pregnancies, which reduces the number of abortions.Making abortion illegal does not change the number of abortions, just makes them more dangerous, so the potential for more death arises. Providing education and access to contraception through companies such as Planned Parenthood decreases the number of abortions.Anybody that wants to decrease the number of deaths is mandated to support programs such as Planned Parenthood. That is the only way to reduce abortions. Rallying for prohibition of abortions increases death. Taking money away from organizations such as Planned Parenthood that provide contraception and education increases death. Preaching abstinence-only increases death.
If a person describes themselves as pro-life in good faith, they have no choice but to vote in favor of legal, safe abortions, comprehensive sex education, and easy access to contraception. Otherwise, they cannot consider themselves to be pro-life.
Read more at Persephone Magazine.
(Source: persephonemagazine.com, via stfuconservatives)
Noam Chomsky On Ron Paul
Questioner: Hello Mr. Chomsky. I’m assuming you know who Ron Paul is. And I’m also assuming you have a general idea about his positions. Here my summary of Mr. Paul’s positions:Noam Chomsky: No.- He values property rights, and contracts between people (defended by law enforcement and courts).
Noam Chomsky: Under all circumstances? Suppose someone facing starvation accepts a contract with General Electric that requires him to work 12 hours a day locked into a factory with no health-safety regulations, no security, no benefits, etc. And the person accepts it because the alternative is that his children will starve. Fortunately, that form of savagery was overcome by democratic politics long ago. Should all of those victories for poor and working people be dismantled, as we enter into a period of private tyranny (with contracts defended by law enforcement)? Not my cup of tea.
- He wants to take away the unfair advantage corporations have (via the dismantling of big government)
Noam Chomsky: “Dismantling of big government” sounds like a nice phrase. What does it mean? Does it mean that corporations go out of existence, because there will no longer be any guarantee of limited liability? Does it mean that all health, safety, workers rights, etc., go out the window because they were instituted by public pressures implemented through government, the only component of the governing system that is at least to some extent accountable to the public (corporations are unaccountable, apart from generally weak regulatory apparatus)? Does it mean that the economy should collapse, because basic R&D is typically publicly funded? like what we’re now using, computers and the internet? Should we eliminate roads, schools, public transportation, environmental regulation? Does it mean that we should be ruled by private tyrannies with no accountability to the general public, while all democratic forms are tossed out the window? Quite a few questions arise.
- He defends workers right to organize (so long as owners have the right to argue against it).
Noam Chomsky: Rights that are enforced by state police power, as you’ve already mentioned.
There are huge differences between workers and owners. Owners can fire and intimidate workers, not conversely. just for starters. Putting them on a par is effectively supporting the rule of owners over workers, with the support of state power itself largely under owner control, given concentration of resources.
- He proposes staying out of the foreign affairs of other nations (unless his home is directly attacked, and must respond to defend it).
Noam Chomsky: He is proposing a form of ultra-nationalism, in which we are concerned solely with our preserving our own wealth and extraordinary advantages, getting out of the UN, rejecting any international prosecution of US criminals (for aggressive war, for example), etc. Apart from being next to meaningless, the idea is morally unacceptable, in my view.
I really can’t find differences between your positions and his.
Noam Chomsky: There’s a lot more. Take Social Security. If he means what he says literally, then widows, orphans, the disabled who didn’t themselves pay into Social Security should not benefit (or of course those awful illegal aliens). His claims about SS being “broken” are just false. He also wants to dismantle it, by undermining the social bonds on which it is based, the real meaning of offering younger workers other options, instead of having them pay for those who are retired, on the basis of a communal decision based on the principle that we should have concern for others in need. He wants people to be able to run around freely with assault rifles, on the basis of a distorted reading of the Second Amendment (and while we’re at it, why not abolish the whole raft of constitutional provisions and amendments, since they were all enacted in ways he opposes?).
So I have these questions:
1) Can you please tell me the differences between your schools of Libertarianism?
Noam Chomsky: There are a few similarities here and there, but his form of libertarianism would be a nightmare, in my opinion, on the dubious assumption that it could even survive for more than a brief period without imploding.
2) Can you please tell me what role private property and ownership have in your school of Libertarianism?
Noam Chomsky: That would have to be worked out by free communities, and of course it is impossible to respond to what I would prefer in abstraction from circumstances, which make a great deal of difference, obviously.
3) Would you support Ron Paul, if he was the Republican presidential candidate, and Hilary Clinton was his Democratic opponent?
(Source: nutopiancitizen, via fadedfem)
EMILY GREEN
As part of our ongoing inquiry into the future of journalism,
Emily Green talks about finding her research
(and her words) in someone else’s book.Twin Roads No Guitar © Andrew Schneider
So, I find myself wondering, what am I going to do about the man who I think plagiarized me?
Sue him? I’ve bleated to a few lawyers. Humiliate him in front of his editor? I’ve written her. Shame him? I’m writing this.
My anger has the evanescence of an ephemeral stream. It dries up, then it comes gushing up in a basement two blocks away.
This case of seeping choler started on a hot Wednesday night in late June. I’d just spent the afternoon doing what non-fiction writers do: being bored witless in the line of duty, in this instance at a Sediment Management Meeting at the Los Angeles County Department of Public Works. I’d stopped at Vroman’s in Pasadena to pick up a few on-call volumes about the history of the Los Angeles County Flood Control Division. There’d been this hanging commitment to write a round-up of water books for a certain publication (initials LARB), so I also stopped by the Environment section to check out the shelves.
Oh! There’s that new water book by Julia Child’s nephew. There had been posts on various water blogs. I couldn’t remember, but I wondered if, as a member of the water news echo chamber, I hadn’t tweeted a recent appearance of his on the Daily Show?
This is a fantastic article - but notice the link to purchase a book at the bottom. How terribly sad.
(Source: lareviewofbooks)
