“The choice not to marry isn’t necessarily a conscious rejection of marriage.It is the ability to live singly if an appealing marriage option doesn’t come along”—
Rebecca Traister, author of All the Single Ladies, on the declining marriage rates among adult women.
We spent a generation telling girls they can do anything they dream of, but never at any point did anyone think to tell boys that they have to meet girls halfway.
The result is we have a generation of men who continue to believe they are entitled to all the marital, social, economic and political privileges their 1940’s counterparts had, and a generation of women who know they deserve true partnership and refuse to settle for table scraps.
Men love to blame women who who are treated poorly by men by saying it’s women’s fault for having low standards.
Well here we have statistical proof of what happens when women raise their standards.
18 years ago when I was coming out, y’all made the word “bisexual” so dirty that for years the only word I felt was accessible to me was “queer”, if I had any chance at having a community.
Queer was widely used at that point among LGBT+ people to refer to ourselves and our community, and while you’d look askance at a straight person using that word, it was most definitely acceptable to call another LGBT+ person queer.
And now y’all are telling me “Queer” isn’t an acceptable umbrella term to use and it just feels like another way you’re using subtle language policing to tell me that really the only people you want in your community are gold-star LG folks.
Those of us who like the word queer because it accurately reflects our misfit status are basically being told that this self-identifier is dirty and wrong, this is no longer the “queer community”, and the message yet again is that we don’t really belong.
I get it if someone doesn’t want to be called queer, and I would never call another person queer against their will but holy hell please stop acting like it’s common knowledge that queer can’t be used as an umbrella term for our community when it was for DECADES
“q-slur” is a very new concept, kids.
This is something
that’s completely overlooked, by the same people who fling the word
“ahistorical” at every viewpoint they disagree with.
When I first started
participating in any kind of LGBTQ+ stuff online (so, 10 years ago),
“queer” was by far the most common descriptor. It was pretty much
agreed it had been reclaimed enough to be safe (I mean, show me an
active slur that has academic disciplines named after it?) and people
seemed much more keen to explore the ambiguity the term offers,
rather than sticking with predefined categories. By “q-slur”
logic, we should’ve been much less accepting of it back then if we
simultaneously believe that LGBTQ+ rights are advancing over time,
but the opposite is true.
So I would say that the current
stigmatization of queer is based on two things: 1) reactionary
essentialism (seeing “queer” as too dangerous for the more
clear-cut categories), and 2) respectability politics.
Now by taking away
“queer”, we don’t have any other term that’s both catchy (no
version of the abbreviation is) and broad enough to actually be
inclusive. Gay is not an umbrella term. It always has a default
connotation that’s very specific. It only reminds me of all the time
I wasted on bad gay-only discourse when I was first questioning my
own identity, and for this reason it took ages to arrive at the
conclusion that I’m just attracted to multiple genders and also trans without dysphoria (because the other bullshit I had to
contend with was the truscum narrative of transness). So, gay is not a safe
term for me. It doesn’t describe me and if I used it, it would
actually misgender my own relationship. I’m not doing that for any of
you, sorry.
Do you know who the
majority of the people who still use “queer” are? Trans and MGA.
Yet again, we have a political line that privileges cis LG people who are fine with binary categories
over the most routinely erased parts of the community. Of course.
This, I imagine, is also
why so many bi/pan and trans/nonbinary people aren’t against aces
being included. Chances are most of us, at least those who are 25+ or so,
have experiences like this, with either being actively policed out
or just unable to find the right identifiers for ages because of the
stigma and general ignorance surrounding them.
And now you’re
telling us we HAVE TO use gay, which isn’t a functional umbrella
term, because queer suddenly isn’t acceptable based on this new logic?
Do you even hear yourselves?
–
“But!” I can already hear the gatekeepers protest, “This all
relies on a bunch of personal anecdotes!”
In which case,
buddy, I have bad news for you about the vast majority of all modern
LGBTQ+ history.
I first came upon Queer as both an umbrella term and a field of academic study. This was in the early 90s. There were queer studies, queer histories, “queering” of the text, queer theory…
And Queer, more so than other words, felt inclusive of people who, at the time, referred to themselves as “genderqueer” as well as people outside the binary, as well as bisexuals, who couldn’t claim gay or lesbian.
It was, at the time, being reclaimed at a time when all the words were being used as slurs, so there was a real reason to reclaim them.
I’ve problem with using words that people are comfortable using, but not at the cost of erasing parts of our history.
I guess now is the
time we’re hitting New Essentialism and Respectability Politics 2.0
from people who aren’t old enough to remember any of this.
Yeah, that’s something a lot of folks in the younger generation don’t get.
When you campaign against words like “queer”, to those of us in the older generations, what it looks like you’re doing is trying to roll the nomenclature back to the bad old days when cisgender gay men were treated as the only “real” members of the community, and everybody else was lumped together as this peripheral pack of weirdos who were expected to be slobberingly grateful to their betters just to be acknowledged at all.
Hell, I clearly recall a time when the leaders of mainstream gay rights activism would routinely castigate even lesbians as parasites and invaders - and be applauded for doing so. It’s difficult to overstate just how deep it went.
And, like, that wasn’t all that long ago - I’m only 33 and I’m old enough to remember that horseshit.
*sees friend on my dash* oh my god . that person right there….thats my friend. My Friend made a post. its a good post i love it. i love you. i would die for you
you know when you read a piece of writing so effortless, so graceful and unpretentious that you are both a) thrilled to the point that you have to put it down and walk in a quick circle to make it last longer but also b) PHYSICALLY INCAPACITATED with snarling jealousy and rage
My professor talked about how women aren’t used to asking for things in the work place, such as raises, because we’re conditioned to downplay our achievements and hold off on asserting our value. She discussed how, even now at this stage in her career (a published doctrate), she shakes when she askes to be considered for a raise and about the first time she was really successful at getting one. After class I asked her what she asked her boss and she winked at me, took me to her office, and asked me to take notes.
She said she practiced this technique like 5 times in her office before she requested a meeting with her boss. I’m gonna share it with you guys because I really loved it.
You start off by thanking your employer for their support (whatever that means in the context of your work environment).
You then say that you would like to take some time to discuss next year’s salary.
You say, allow me to refresh your memory regarding some of my accomplishments or contributions from the past year, and you present a written summary of all that you’ve done.
You close by saying, I hope that next year’s salary reflects this list of contributions and you thank them for their time and see yourself out.
I just loved how she made it seem so much less daunting of a task. She said not to underestimate your achievements as women have a tendency underreporting what they’ve done.
The fact that she shared this with me really meant a lot as well as women really need to be there to empower each other and help guide each other towards success. So if you end up using this, let me know! I want to see how it works for you ^_^.
!!!
It’s also helpful to research what people in your position are generally paid and give that to your employer. My mom was always underpaid in her positions and was able to consistently get a raise by showing that she should be making significantly more for the position and job duties she was doing.
Kay but my favourite thing about Elfangor is that when you meet him in The Invasion he’s this mysterious, noble, powerful alien with this aura around him that lets the kids know that this guy is a Big Deal
and then you see him in the Andalite Chronicles and he’s driving across a Taxxon planet in a bright yellow Mustang drinking Doctor Pepper and blaring the Rolling Stones
I love Elfangor a lot
Somewhere there is a universe where Tobias’s dad has been Marco’s dad’s eccentric coworker for ages, so when in, like, Book 20, when ‘Al’ is finally revealed to be a Majestic Alien War-Prince in disguise, nerdy little Tobias is basically bluescreened from the unbelieveable awesome and Marco’s like “this dude almost got fired for hacking a vending machine and eating all the strawberry Pop-Tarts during a code push.”
yeah but more importantly WHY HASN’T ANYONE WRITTEN THAT FIC
You know what? Fuck it. Everyone who reblogs this by… Hmm… June 6th gets a hand-drawn dragon head based off of what I think of you.just by looking at your blog.
Shoplifting gets low-income retail workers punished or fired and does absolutely nothing to hurt corporate profits.
Whatever financial hit a store takes from shoplifting, it gets taken out on their minimum wage workers. Most of those workers would get fired if they took any one thing from the store, no matter how much they needed it.
When you shoplift, you’re endangering poor people’s jobs. It’s not cool.
ADVICE FOR YOUNG PEOPLE ON TUMBLR
Shoplifting is a GREAT WAY to put mom and pop businesses OUT OF BUSINESS. Shoplifting is a GREAT WAY to throw off a stores inventory which will throw the employees under scrutiny. Shoplifting is a GREAT WAY to put innocent employees in an extremely unsafe position because their options are to either A: let you get away with it and report you and then possibly get FIRED for “being inattentive” or B: Attempt to confront you and risk you throwing a FIT making a SCENE and eventually get the employee FIRED for “Not treating customers right” and shouldering the responsibility for the scene YOU JUST MADE. Shoplifting is a GREAT WAY to force companies into downsizing because they aren’t pulling enough revenue- firing hundreds of people who never did you any wrong.
Shoplifting is a GREAT WAY to make a complete jerk out of yourself and hurt as many workers as possible in the process.
And because the OP seems like something a person who only cares about themselves might say, you can also get caught and prosecuted. In fact if you do it often enough, it’s inevitable that eventually you will.
Yup. Plus, having any sort of criminal record can restrict you not only for the employment opportunities you’ll apply for later in life, but even for some volunteer work - and if you end up unemployed, depending on where you live and what your circumstances are, you may be required to do volunteer work in order to qualify for assistance.
in case you were wondering if anyone will remember your random acts of kindness:
when i was in kindergarten, i met a boy named jordan. i don’t remember meeting him. i remember knowing him when, one day before dismissal, he came up and asked if he could be my friend. i was a painfully shy kid, and he was friendly and fun and talked a lot, so i said yes. we were the kind of friends that kindergarteners are: buddies during snack time, sharing the best crayons when we colored, and never even thinking that it could go outside of the walls of our school. it was fine. it was great. i had a friend. he’s the first friend i ever made on my own. he’s the first person who made me realise that i could.
my next clear memory of jordan comes when i was in fourth grade. in the morning, i was talking to kristen, who was one of my only friends at that point. she was looking forward to gym, because it was dodgeball day. i was not; i was always picked last in gym class, no matter who the team captains were. you don’t pick the slow-moving kid with glasses if you want to win, and grade-schoolers can be cruel. jordan heard, though; i remember that, because i remember him looking at me as i pointed out how much i wasn’t looking forward to gym, and i remember my cheeks burning because this popular kid heard about my problems.
we had lunch, and math, and finally gym to round out the day. gym, and dodgeball, and riley being one captain, and jordan being the other. and jordan, who won the coin toss, who got his pick of any kid in our class, picking me first. he didn’t even hesitate. he called my name, he pointed to me, and he smiled at me when i walked up to stand next to him. when riley laughed and picked derek for his team and taunted jordan about how he was going to lose, jordan laughed right back and told him that with me on his team, he was definitely going to win. (i don’t remember if we won or not. we probably didn’t. all i remember is not hating dodgeball for one day, and that was enough.)
fast-forward another few years, to another gym class in another school. we were doing baseball, which was my own personal hell in seventh grade. my eyesight hadn’t gotten any better, and i was too tall, too skinny, too out of touch with how to move my limbs to possibly make the bat and the ball connect. rules were rules, though, and no matter how far back in the batting line i stood, nobody was allowed to go back in the building until everyone had a chance. i made myself last every chance i could, because by that point anyone who was interested in the sport had gotten their fill and wandered away, and it didn’t matter that i stuck my elbows out and hunched over the plate and swung and swung and swung at balls that kept whizzing by me and smacking into the fence.
this day, though, this day was the worst day, because i had to be in the middle of the lineup. i don’t remember why; i only remember the sick feeling in my stomach, the feeling that the class would laugh at me as i stood there praying i didn’t move the wrong way and get hit with the ball. when i got up to home plate, i grabbed the bat and stood there and stared at the pitching mound, and jordan smiled back at me. i was clearly nervous; it was no secret that i hated gym, wasn’t any good at it. there were two kids on bases in the field, and someone in the back made a comment about striking me out; one of the kids on base groaned about how he was just going to steal home. jordan kept smiling as he walked off the mound, came up next to me, and quietly asked if he could show me how to hold the bat, how to stand. he demonstrated how to swing, and told me to just try to hit it gently. “just like this,” he said, and held the bat out in front of himself. bunting. i knew the name, even if i’d never been able to pull it off before. “hold it there. you’ll hit the ball.”
i nodded. i didn’t care. i wanted it to be over with.
he walked back to the mound, looked back and me, and then took a few steps forward. “just like i said,” he told me, and i nodded again. he tossed the ball very gently, and i held the bat out, and miracle of miracles, i bunted the ball. “run, run,” he yelled, making a ridiculous dive for the ball, kicking it out of the way of any of the outfielders who were catching on and heading for it. “first base!”
i ran. i made it to first base. i laughed, because i had never been able to do that before, and jordan turned and smiled at me before returning to the mound and striking out the next three people at bat, one right after the other.
now consider this: i met jordan almost twenty-five years ago. i remember these things, these small kindnesses, the things he didn’t have to do but did anyway. he probably doesn’t remember doing any of them. he probably doesn’t even remember me, at this point, and that’s fine. i remember his kindness when there wasn’t a ton to be had, and i remember him smiling when everyone else was laughing at me.
kindness matters. thanks for being kind, jordan. and to everyone else who has been kind, to me or to someone else: thank you, too. your kindness is noted, is appreciated, is remembered.
Confession: I have a friend who likes to text me at like 4am when he’s had nightmares or he can’t sleep or he just needs a friend. He thinks I’m always awake at 4am but really I go to bed around 12am and I change his text-tone to the loudest one I have just so it wakes me up when he needs me.
you’re the kind of friend everyone needs
I think that since its been a year since I made this post its time for an update. In the past year I’ve watched this post grow and grow, people I work with have told me about it as “this post I saw the other day” and they have no idea it’s my post. The person I wrote this about has even reblogged it. He is no longer texting me at 4am. Not because we no longer speak but because the nightmares have stopped. He and I both are in a much better place. Most often the only times he’s waking me up at 4am is when he’s pulling me closer to him while we sleep. He’s more than a friend now and I’m forever thankful to have him. Everyone messaged me saying he was lucky to have me but I think I was just as lucky to have him and I would do it all over.
like the problem with the tumblr community is that no one is allowed to safely fuck up
if i was my uneducated ignorant little 14 year old self y’all would have ripped me a new one and probably scarred me for life
and that’s so scary tbh, that a community of adults would and DO witch hunt and harass minors over things they’re being children about
How to gently acknowledge and inform a person:
Check their blog/content/about me. How old is this person? If they are still in HS/under 18, remember that this person is a minor and needs guidance, not chastising.
Second, look at a little bit of their tumblr. Are they going through serious mental health struggles(Depression/suicide/etc)? Please take this into account when formulating your response.
Finally, evaluate why you follow this person to begin with. Now, if you are 19 and following a 17 year old, then you are within the same age bracket and can talk to this person as if you are talking to a peer. 12/13/14/15 year olds are still formulating their opinions of the world, and you being nasty to them isn’t going to help inform their opinion. So why do you follow a 13 year old? Would you hang out with this person IRL if you two were in the same location? Would it be weird(mentally and physically) for you to hang out with this person? If the answer is yes, unfollow their blog and step away from the situation.
NOW, here is how you formulate a PRIVATE ASK OR FAN MAIL to someone who has said or done something problematic. Shaming them publicly for ignorance/limited world view is a great way to close someone off or harass them, and you don’t want to do either of these things. Online bullying can take on many forms, and being an adult harassing a young teenager adds to online culture problems
“Hey! I noticed that you reblogged (x). I wanted to let you know that this is really hurtful to (x) group, and it is offensive because of (x) reason. I just wanted to let you know because you may not have known. Thank you for receiving this message and listening”
This points out what is wrong, why it is wrong, and does not demand anything of the person you are sending this message to
And then you step away. Do not send this person 20 asks. Do not threaten them. STEP AWAY.
If they engage, respond, or ask further questions, answer them kindly. If they don’t respond, don’t continue to engage.
REMEMBER: you were 14 once too. You said and did things that you cringe at now. You said and did things that were problematic. Getting yelled at was not what you needed. You grew up, you learned, you changed. Let others do the same.
the fact that the parks and recs quote about alex hating most things but not hating laurens wasn't even that far off from an actual quote....
you know, you are 100% correct.
“You know the opinion I entertain of mankind, and how much it is my desire to preserve myself free from particular attachments, and to keep my happiness independent of the caprice of others. You should not have taken advantage of my sensibility to steal into my affections without my consent.” -alex hamilton, in an April 1779 letter to john laurens (chernow pg. 123)
hamilspeak for “i hate most things but i never seem to hate you”
i can’t even make this stuff up, man. goddamn. lams is the realest.
New rule, non muslims can’t say the word jihad. Until you stop conflating a word that means personal struggle with faith and temptation with terrorism youre just not allowed to say it.
I’m not a Muslim but I just thought I would reblog this because I think it’s definitely worth listening to.
It’s totally okay for non muslims to reblog this, and i encourage it. Im just glad you’re listening.
The word means “struggle,” not “holy war.” War is never holy.
In Islam, we are taught that the most noblest form of “jihad” is the internal struggle–the struggle inside our souls, struggling to stay true to ourselves (our beliefs, our morals/values, our emotions. etc…). I believe that we can all agree that it is such a major struggle trying to stay true to yourself in a world that constantly tries to challenge you and put you down.
All right, look, everybody, let’s get one thing about me absolutely clear. I am a taker-of-no-shit with a short temper. I am aware of this. I have been called a cold and ruthless bitch by everyone from people I hated to my now-ex-boyfriend to my family. I’m over it. I have moved on. I’d rather be divisive than indecisive, etc, etc.
So, uh. An anon calling me names ain’t gonna impress me, mmm-kay?
when I start feeling insecure about my lack of creativity when it comes to naming things I like to think about how Victor Hugo wrote a novel about poverty and the sociopolitical struggles of 19th century France called The Miserables and called the lead character John Mcjohn
If you’ve had unprotected sex and are afraid of possibly being at risk for HIV, please go to the emergency room and ask about POST EXPOSURE PROPHYLAXIS.
Works for up to 48 - 72 hours after exposure to HIV.
BOOST!
I wouldn’t need this but this is actually really cool and I’d like to share it in case anyone might need it.
If you see this on your dash REBLOG REBLOG REBLOG!!!! You could save a life
SAVE A LIFE 🔃🔃🔃🔃🔃🔃🔃🔃
There’s a FDA approved daily medication called Truvada, or the PrEP treatment, that is 92-99% effective in preventing the contraction of HIV.
Private insurance and Medicaid cover it. You can also get it for free in a lot of high risk cities like Atlanta, NY, and San Fransisco.
PrEP is for prevention of contracting the virus think of taking it as a vitamin so you won’t get sick - it’s a preventative measure and should by no means replace condoms, dental dams, etc
PeP is after you know or think (!) you’ve been exposed to the virus and you would start to take this in a time frame of 3 days (after three days it’s ineffective) and then continue the treatment for the course of a month as a way to stop the virus from making copies of itself. I wouldn’t call it a morning after pill but it’s like your total last resort and not guaranteed to work but still you need to get on it if you have been rawing or even exposed to hiv+ blood as a health worker or from intravenous drug use or if you’ve been sexually assaulted
you ever thought that maybe the reason girls say they’re fine when they’re not, or they’re not mad when they are, is because the second they show any semblance of emotion they’re written off as hysterical bitches that are probably on their period?
THE FUCKING DA VINCI CODE HAS BEEN CRACKED
Reblogging again, because this will never be irrelevant.
“I had an auto-repair man once, who, on these intelligence tests, could not possibly have scored more than 80, by my estimate. I always took it for granted that I was far more intelligent than he was. Yet, when anything went wrong with my car I hastened to him with it, watched him anxiously as he explored its vitals, and listened to his pronouncements as though they were divine oracles - and he always fixed my car.
Well, then, suppose my auto-repair man devised questions for an intelligence test. Or suppose a carpenter did, or a farmer, or, indeed, almost anyone but an academician. By every one of those tests, I’d prove myself a moron, and I’d be a moron, too. In a world where I could not use my academic training and my verbal talents but had to do something intricate or hard, working with my hands, I would do poorly. My intelligence, then, is not absolute but is a function of the society I live in and of the fact that a small subsection of that society has managed to foist itself on the rest as an arbiter of such matters.
Consider my auto-repair man, again. He had a habit of telling me jokes whenever he saw me. One time he raised his head from under the automobile hood to say: “Doc, a deaf-and-mute guy went into a hardware store to ask for some nails. He put two fingers together on the counter and made hammering motions with the other hand. The clerk brought him a hammer. He shook his head and pointed to the two fingers he was hammering. The clerk brought him nails. He picked out the sizes he wanted, and left. Well, doc, the next guy who came in was a blind man. He wanted scissors. How do you suppose he asked for them?”
Indulgently, I lifted my right hand and made scissoring motions with my first two fingers. Whereupon my auto-repair man laughed raucously and said, “Why, you dumb jerk, He used his voice and asked for them.” Then he said smugly, “I’ve been trying that on all my customers today.” “Did you catch many?” I asked. “Quite a few,” he said, “but I knew for sure I’d catch you.” “Why is that?” I asked. “Because you’re so goddamned educated, doc, I knew you couldn’t be very smart.””—Isaac Asimov (via skinnybaras)
ok seriously like. when someone on this site is 100% without question known to be a pedophile, with hard evidence against them that they own/view child porn and want to fuck real life children and are a danger to real children, DONT FUCKING REPORT THEM TO TUMBLR all that does is get their blog (ie: all the evidence, and any personal information they may have posted that could be used by authorities to track them down) deleted, which does nothing to keep children safe, it just means they arent on tumblr anymore. when you come across someone like this its best to use sites like these:
for the love of God, report the person using these kinds of services, NOT tumblr’s reporting service, so that the proper authorities can track them down and deal with them accordingly
my beautiful cinnamon roll too good for this world fave:
my trash-shit fave:
my I love to hate them fave:
my I hate to love them fave:
my I wouldn’t piss on them if they were on fire non-fave:
my I didn’t care about them either way at first but the fandom makes such a big deal about them now I can’t stand them non-fave:
my I could take them or leave them kinda non-fave:
my I will go down with this ship and I won’t put my hands up and surrender, there will be no white flag above my door. I’m in love and always will be fave ship:
my dirtybadwrong fave ship:
my they’re cute together and I dig them but I’m not all that terribly invested kinda fave ship:
my I didn’t care about this ship either way at first but the fandom makes such a big deal about it now I can’t stand it non-fave ship:
sometimes i get a little stressed out because i’m living in a part of history that’ll one day be talked about and discussed and papers written and what am i doing? what have i done? laundry, barely
would you rather eat for free for a year or get new clothes for free for a year?
Okay, speaking as someone who’s had some experience with the ‘it would be awesome if food was free because money is not a thing’ thing, the clothes are a better solution. And let me tell you why. Food has almost no resale value (like, you could make a case for the canned stuff, but I’m assuming that, given the choice, we’d all prefer to NOT eat sketchy canned soups, right?). Clothes on the other hand…you take advantage of that ‘free clothes’ clause and you acquire a fuck-ton of designer clothes in your size or bigger (because they have to be theoretically for you, so they can’t be smaller) and then you sell them and you use the money for food. Boom. Your income from your job can go entirely to things like rent and utilities.
