“To us, femininity is neither phallic fantasy nor default, it’s beyond surface and it certainly does not passively wait to come alive through a (male) gaze. Fiercely intentional, neither objects nor objective, we have stuff to get out our chests. But speaking bittersweets truths to power takes both busty bravery and some serious padding.”
I really enjoy gender performance and the butch/femme dynamic, but a lot of people see butch/femme as a reenactment of sexist heterosexual relationship roles. So I was excited to read Sublime Femme’s post The Feminist Fairytale about Butch/Femme. Of course, I wasn’t disappointed. It’s absolutely fantastic. I tried to excerpt it here, but ended up copying practically the whole post - so just go read it.
You say you don’t believe global warming is man-made. Could you tell us what scientists you’ve spoken with or read who have led you to that conclusion? What do you think the 2,500 scientists of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change are getting wrong?
Cindy and John McCain say you have experience in foreign affairs because Alaska is next to Russia. When did you last speak with Prime Minister Putin, and what did you talk about?
You’ve suggested that God approves of the Iraq War and the Alaska pipeline. How do you know?
Do fraud victims have to pay for forensic audits? Do banks have to pay the police to watch the security video after they’ve been robbed? Of course not. There is absolutely no way in good conscience that a mayor could force victims to pay for the own rape examinations.
The theory of childhood, also known as child origin, is a damnable, loathsome and indefensible lie. How can any thinking person suppose all humans used to be babies once? Just consider these arguments:
There is no development path from babies to adults, no transitional forms between these two species. Show me even one baby with the head of a grown man on his body. Can you? No? Not even a bearded toddler? No adults with unfused skullbones, outside unfortunate disorders? Not even a tiny little newborn girl suddenly sprouting a respectable bosom? You can’t find them, because they don’t exist. There isn’t a single transitional form between children and adults, and you will never find one because the theory simply is an unscientific lie.
do you know
that your tomorrow
has no tomorrow?
that your blood
is the ink
of new maps?
Unsurprising news of the day: Many women leave the church because of its “’silence’ about sexual desire and activity, and because of its hostility to single-parent families and unmarried couples.” [via A Spritely Oolong]
Sciencewomen point to an awesome statement by Michelle Obama:
I was raised to believe I could do it all, and that was very empowering. Then I got into the work force and realized there was really no support for me to do it all. … We either have to fix that or be honest about it.
An awesome video - my new crush raps about the LHC.
The overwhelming pressure to conform to masculine and feminine ideals - or die trying - is constant. The obligation to conform is also somewhat invisible and harder to put your finger on. It comes out in …. the funny looks I get pushing an elevator button myself instead of waiting for the guy nearest the panel to ask me where I’m going. Or the way a man might tell a woman he doesn’t even know to smile, as if it’s a woman’s job to keep up that cheery countenance for his sake. It comes in the form of subtle reactions, jokes you hear, ideas about what men and women are. And if you start breaking the rules, you start to feel cut loose, a little adrift; you don’t know why all the jokes other people are laughing at make you uncomfortable.
the first time it occurred to me that my mother wasn’t just my mom or Mrs. My Dad, but actually had a first name, astonished me. I remember feeling shocked by the realization that my mother was a person, like me, and not just someone who’d been invented or come into being as a result of my father’s need for a wife or my and my siblings’ need for a mother.
Abortionclinicdays proposes that a special notice to patients be displayed in places where caregivers are allowed to refuse reproductive care to women if it interferes with their religious rights. It begins”I follow my own religious beliefs ahead of your medical needs. Therefore, I will not support, offer, or approve any of the following checked off below.”