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Your latest ask/reply reminded me of an argument I've encountered before and never known how to respond to. It's very minor in the grand scheme of things, but concerning equal pay in sports. People often bring up how women's tennis matches are much shorter than men's.. And so they end up being paid less. Is this an example of inequality or is it justified? Clearly, in usual work situations, woman work just as much and as long as men, but what about in unusual situations? Thanks~

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 11:33:49 -0400

My question is: whose decision was it for women’s matches to be shorter? And whose decision was it that a tennis player’s pay should be based on the length of the matches?

The answer isn’t necessarily just “men”—some women participate in this too—but I really doubt it’s “female tennis players who decided that they didn’t like money anyway and this was a totally fair deal for them.”

My brother, who's a pretty big fan of your blog, and I had a debate on feminism and I was fairly miffed at the idea that modern feminism somehow strengthens women. Wanting to be paid the same amount for less work is 'strong?' Wanting to stay home while men fight in wars? Not advising women how to fend off an assault/potential rape? I just don't get it.

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 10:13:00 -0400

Well, you’re right about one thing: feminism isn’t about being strong. Feminism is about equal opportunity and dignity and safety for people regardless of whether they’re “strong,” because you don’t have to be strong to deserve humanity.

After that bit…

No, women want to be paid the same amount for the same work. Yes, women often do less paid work or lower-status work than men, but this isn’t because they’re on the couch eating bon-bons; it’s because they’re doing more unpaid housework and childcare, and because men have an easier time getting hired and promoted to high-status jobs.

Feminists have been fighting for years upon yeeeeeaaars for women to be allowed in combat and are finally achieving it.

I think what you were trying to say in that last bit was “not giving women advice that is completely unsupported by evidence, demands women severely limit daily activities men would take for granted, tells survivors that they were to blame if they broke any of hundreds of nonsensical rules before they were assaulted, and always merrily ignores the fact that the people in a woman’s life most likely to assault her are her friends and family members.”

In addition to the messed-upped-ness of referring to women only...

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 21:04:00 -0400

In addition to the messed-upped-ness of referring to women only in terms of their relationships to others: what if she isn’t? What if she’s a single, childless, only child with no living parents? Does she matter less then?

"God we fuck up teenagers’ heads. We tell them that biological conditions are moral punishments and..."

Fri, 14 Jun 2013 18:58:35 -0400

“

God we fuck up teenagers’ heads. We tell them that biological conditions are moral punishments and then we get all shocked when they don’t practice rational risk management of biological conditions. We teach them “sex is super desirable and all the cool kids do it, and it’s hideously shameful and will destroy your life” and we wonder why they act an eensy bit neurotic about it. If you tried to design a system for making sexually active kids confused and unsafe, you couldn’t do much better than the American media and school system.

And for once, the answer is relatively simple. Just talk about sex like it’s a part of life. Some people have sex and some people don’t, because people are different. STIs aren’t bad because they’re Dirty Crotch Rot; they’re bad because they’re contagious illnesses like strep throat or whooping cough, and you can ask a doctor to check for and treat them just like you would with strep throat. Unwanted pregnancy isn’t a scarlet A; it’s a mostly-preventable accident that sometimes occurs when people are going about their normal business of having sex. You can ask the school counselor about a variety of topics, including career planning, problems at home, questions about sex, or conflicts with teachers.

If we could just get the goddamn stick out of our collective ass and accept that sex is a human activity and teenagers are humans, maybe there wouldn’t be quite so many plaintive “I don’t understand my body and I’m confused and scared and I don’t know anyone I can ask in person” messages flying out into the world.

”

- The Pervocracy - “Teenage Panic.” (via klonazepam)
reblogging myself because WIL WHEATON

lostbeasts: i will forever be dumbfounded by the SHEER SIZES of some prehistoric animals i...

Thu, 13 Jun 2013 20:42:52 -0400

lostbeasts:

i will forever be dumbfounded by the SHEER SIZES of some prehistoric animals i mean

holy

friggin

shit

i still think HORSES are big but

would you

just

cOULD YOU IMAGINE

FUCK

I'm shipping you and Trogdor, burninating the countryside holding hands.

Thu, 13 Jun 2013 14:29:35 -0400

GRRRAWWWRRRHHHRAR <3

I volunteer to treat you as a dragon. As the first step, I'll begin composing epic poems of your fearsome deeds and the mighty hordes of treasure you have gathered, so that fledgling adventurers might search for rumors of your lair. Huzzah! ...I think I just out-nerded myself.

Thu, 13 Jun 2013 14:25:24 -0400

GRAWWWRGARHHH *shoots flames*

Oh man, I just got the best (worst) comment on one of my old posts. I’m not publishing it on...

Thu, 13 Jun 2013 14:19:00 -0400

Oh man, I just got the best (worst) comment on one of my old posts. I’m not publishing it on The Pervocracy, of course, because fuck that shit, but this is too entertainingly wrong to not share.

“I just don’t think it’s any worse in kink than in sex.” In reegular sex, a woman is usually exposed to the danger of one monogamous partner who can potentially cross the line. Where as BDSM has a some kink where women are “shared” with other masters, sometimes with masters they just barely met. “Because I love and respect my body, my mind, and my potential as a human being—and all three are going “hell yeah, I totally want this.”” BDSM is all about taking something and twisting and changing it into something else. A woman is changed from a free human being into a slave. A human being is changed from a thinking person into a object that has no will of it’s own. A person is changed from a human being into a sub-human pet or animal led ny a leash or made to pull a carriage like a horse. Love is changed from thinking of what is best for the other person into what is best for the master. Submissives never reach their full human potential because they made to be less than human.

Things I learned from this comment:

1) Vanilla means monogamous and BDSM means polyamorous. Clearly.

2) Being poly is more dangerous than being monogamous because each successive partner raises the chance that one of them will be abusive. It’s math.

(Okay, this one is complicated, but I’d argue that isolation is also a risk factor, and while poly certainly doesn’t guarantee a relationship won’t be abusive, I don’t think “twice the partners, twice the chance of an abusive one” is exactly how it works.)

3) Subs don’t get to turn down being shared with other masters, or dehumanized, or anything else. They’re used and get no say in it. But it’s still okay to blame them and tell them they’re being bad feminists by submitting!

4) BDSM is only 24/7, male-dominant female-submissive D/s.

5) When someone treats you like an object with no will of its own, that actually makes you into that object.

6) Like, if someone treats me like a horse, I become a horse. …Wait, that’s actually kind of cool. …Can someone treat me like a dragon?

7) This is permanent, too. I acted like a slave in one scene back in 2003, so I’m stuck being a slave forever now. To some dude I don’t even know where he is. It’s very inconvenient.

8) Just remember this person calling you an object and an animal and telling you that you can never reach your human potential? Has your best interests at heart!

How much of our generation do you think sleeps separately from their partners? My fiancee and I live together but often sleep in separate rooms because we have totally different sleep/wake schedules and preferences, and also we're both light sleepers and keep each other awake if we sleep together every night. I think we both feel a little weird about it sometimes because of the social pressure for couples to share a bed, but we both sleep demonstrably better this way...I dunno. Thoughts?

Thu, 13 Jun 2013 14:14:50 -0400

I have no idea about “our generation,” but I would want my own bedroom if I ever lived with a partner. I’m a hermit, I need my space; it’s not even about any specific practical need but a sense that I should have some time in my life when I’m subject to observation from absolutely no one.

But while I think this might be more common in our generation than previous ones, it’s not like The Thing Now or whatever. Lots of people sleep together because of economic necessity or different cultural framings than yours or mine, and even among people who can afford separate bedrooms and see it as desirable, it’s still “normal” for couples who live together to share a bed.

My mother has never slept alone. She shared a room with her sister growing up, then with a roommate...

Thu, 13 Jun 2013 13:59:38 -0400

My mother has never slept alone.

She shared a room with her sister growing up, then with a roommate in college, then got married in college, then moved in with her boyfriend immediately after separating from my father.

I haven’t shared a bedroom long-term with anyone since I was seventeen. My sister and I got our own rooms when I was about ten, and then for one year in college I shared a room with a roommate.

I don’t bring this up to say that I’m better or my mom is worse or vice versa or whatever. Only that it’s a massive difference in our experience of the world. We’re from the same background and the same family, but I have an entire experience of solitude and privacy that’s very different from hers, and she has an idea of what it means to share your life with others that’s very different from mine. It would be surprising if this didn’t seep into our ideology, if it didn’t give us different ideas of how much of a person’s life is “supposed to be” shared.

There are giant divides between our experiences and our expectations that we never acknowledge or understand, and they’re not always in the obvious places.

"Probably no man has ever troubled to imagine how strange his life would appear to himself if it were..."

Wed, 12 Jun 2013 21:30:11 -0400

“Probably no man has ever troubled to imagine how strange his life would appear to himself if it were unrelentingly assessed in terms of his maleness … If he gave an interview to a reporter, or performed any unusual exploit, he would find it recorded in such terms as these: “Professor Bract, although a distinguished botanist, is not in any way an unmanly man. He has, in fact, a wife and seven children. Tall and burly, the hands with which he handles his delicate specimens are as gnarled and powerful as those of a Canadian lumberjack, and when I swilled beer with him in his laboratory, he bawled his conclusions at me in a strong, gruff voice that implemented the promise of his swaggering moustache.” […]”

- From seanan_mcguire’s posting on Sexism, the current SFWA kerfuffle, and “lady authors:” in the comments, via jenk, a long lovely passage from Dorothy L. Sayers’ 1947 essay, “The Human-Not-Quite-Human”. Read the whole thing. The perception of this problem is nothing new… (via dduane)

I love me some Dorothy L. Sayers.

(via sarahreesbrennan)

snailchimera: sinvraal: persian-slipper: anathemarmotqueen: H...

Wed, 12 Jun 2013 17:27:30 -0400

snailchimera:

sinvraal:

persian-slipper:

anathemarmotqueen:

Hello tumblr allow me to present you the swedish vallhund

i´m VERY confused as you guys are not freaking out about these little guys yet since they´re basically WOLF CORGIS.

I swear to god, I thought it was a photoshop at first.

Oh my Glob, it’s “the little cattle dog of the Vikings”. Not only is it a wolf corgi, but it’s a Viking wolf corgi.

VIKING WOLF CORGI

I approve.

p-unkin: uwu thank you, handsome! I used to live with two...

Mon, 10 Jun 2013 19:04:44 -0400

p-unkin:

uwu thank you, handsome!

I used to live with two pitbulls. They were 70-pound lapdogs. So many doggycuddles!

molly-ren: boyqueen: deviantfemme: I’ll just be here,...

Mon, 10 Jun 2013 19:02:34 -0400

molly-ren:

boyqueen:

deviantfemme:

I’ll just be here, reblogging this over and over, during pride season.

And also liberation does not = glitter

I honestly can’t figure out if glitter is what you’re supposed to use to assimilate or resist it

It’s weird, until a couple years ago I’d only heard “assimilation” in cultural/ethnic contexts. (Particularly Jewish ones, where it largely refers to a failure to marry a Nice Jewish Boy/Girl.) Where it makes some sense; you grow up with the culture of your family, but for various reasons ranging from “viewing your elders and their heritage as inferior” to “livelihood and safety at risk if you don’t,” you start acting more and more mainstream American. You assimilate into the mainstream.

There’s also a factor of legitimate personal choice here; preserving a culture is valuable, but no individual is obligated to live by The Old Ways just for preservation’s sake. It’s one of those choices you can ask people to question, but not to totally disdain.

But all this gets kind of weird when you apply it to queerness, because queer people are most often born into nonqueer families. They don’t assimilate; they’re born “assimilated,” and have to discover over time the parts of them that don’t fit into their families’ culture. And to complicate it even further, not all of these nonqueer families are mainstream American, and leaving their cultures to pursue queer culture is also a kind of assimilation.

So I’m not really saying the image is wrong or right, or that assimilation is always good or bad, just that… it’s hella more complicated than pink glitter.

saola: wow um dream home yes. I love the idea of living in a...

Mon, 10 Jun 2013 13:53:03 -0400

saola:

wow um dream home yes.

I love the idea of living in a space that doesn’t conform to all the conventions of “house.” Like, I don’t want a dining room and a foyer and a den. I want a doing-things-space.

Also, that big ceiling beam just screams “hard point.”

Okay, a whole bunch of people are asking me what happened with Ozy Frantz/Ozyreads/@_Ozymandias42,...

Sat, 08 Jun 2013 20:59:00 -0400

Okay, a whole bunch of people are asking me what happened with Ozy Frantz/Ozyreads/@_Ozymandias42, so here’s my best summation of events:

• @zhinxy tweeted that a lot of people are having problems with Ozy that they’re reluctant to talk about because they have a lot of mutual friends with Ozy and are worried about being dismissed/ostracized/forced to take “sides” against friends if they criticize zir.

• A bunch of other people (some of them friends or people whose writing I respect), after that, talked about a lot of problems they’ve had with zir writing.

• These include: that zie was playing Devil’s Advocate too much and in areas where we have enough devils already (defending Orson Scott Card, writing about “maybe patriarchy exists for a good reason”), and that zie was talking about issues affecting trans women when zie did not have the knowledge or experience to talk authoritatively about “tr*nny” or “what to do if you find your girlfriend has a penis.”

• One person stepped way over the line in saying that zie was genderqueer for attention or masculine privilege. (Thread on that is ongoing here.)

• I didn’t say anything for a couple days about this, because I like Ozy. I still do. I disagree with a lot of things zie’s said, but I also love a lot of things zie’s said. I also was pretty upset over the “genderqueer for attention” thing and didn’t want to even get involved with that. But I also didn’t want to ignore people bringing up real issues. Eventually I decided to just make a couple tweets about what I was getting out of the discussion, which is that as a somewhat sheltered masculine genderqueer person myself, I need to be mindful of not presenting myself as an expert on trans issues and especially not on trans women’s issues.

• The discussion continued on Twitter for a while, with people continuing to discuss problems they had with Ozy’s writing and with feeling uncomfortable criticizing zir.

• Ozy, as far as I know without saying anything to anyone online, deleted zir Twitter, Tumblr, and blog.

• AFAIK Ozy is with friends right now and is okay.

• I am sad and guilty about how everything went down. I like and respect people on both “sides” of this and I hate that there are “sides.”

• So that’s the story with Ozy right now, again, AFAIK.

alwaysblind: MAYBE if u didn’t want ur son to EAT poeple u shouldnt have named him something that...

Sat, 08 Jun 2013 17:45:53 -0400

alwaysblind:

MAYBE if u didn’t want ur son to EAT poeple u shouldnt have named him something that rhymes with cannibal u should have name him hegetarian or something

Advice time. I am female, and kind of bothered by femininity. The "sexy" kind (performing seductiveness squicks me) and the "domestic" kind (I'm not much of a hausfrau.) What do you do with this? Like, "I'm female, I'm fine with being female, but femininity feels creepy and dehumanizing. I want to be a person." Half the world seems to think "duh, of course you're a person" and the other half thinks I'm "disconnected from my feminine essence" or whatever.

Thu, 06 Jun 2013 09:24:00 -0400

I think it’s important to separate “dehumanizing” from “not for me.” Femininity is not for you and that’s cool, but it is for some people and that’s also cool. Compulsory femininity is bullshit, but femininity itself is not.

(I freely admit to fucking this up for a loooong time. Saying “I don’t want to be girly!” without appending or implying “because girly girls are yucky!” doesn’t come naturally in a society that’s all about doing gender and sex The One Correct Way; it felt easier to define a new Correct Way than to accept genuine diversity.)

There’s a lot of pressure on women to be sexy and domestic, but there’s also people for whom those things and/or other parts of “femininity” are genuine things they are/want. So I think you need to say “femininity/seductiveness/domesticity feels wrong for me” and leave it at that.

shoofle: nerdcorerising: champagne-for-dinner: dorkly: The 9...

Wed, 05 Jun 2013 15:15:30 -0400

shoofle:

nerdcorerising:

champagne-for-dinner:

dorkly:

The 9 Gamers You Play Online

Not to make this about feminism or anything, but on the subject of “The Girl”, I was playing Halo 4 online once (one of the rare times with a mic) and into the match came two players,a guy and a girl. The guy was a total dick but the girl was really nice and sounded cute…so every guy on the team, including me, told her so. And for about two minutes there was a bunch of guys telling a girl she was pretty and then a guy saying we were all desperate loser virgins and then what was probably the most cohesive team effort to destroy the other team I’ve ever been apart of in a halo match.
Yes, we all thought she was cool for playing halo but after we got that out we just played like she was another spartan. Moral of the story yes some guys are dicks (I’ll even give you most guys are dicks) but some just want to tell you you’re pretty. Not because they want to get in your pants but because they want to give you a genuine compliment.

-“Other Co-owner of this blog”

Wait how did that comment turn from “those guys are dicks” to “we just want to give you a compliment”

And how is it a genuine compliment if he’s calling her pretty but he can’t see her?

fuckyeahcosplayhelp: Chest Armour Tutorial by...

Wed, 05 Jun 2013 12:38:27 -0400

fuckyeahcosplayhelp:

Chest Armour Tutorial by *EnjiNight

(image edited for tumblr viewing)