Rise Up, Oh Heart, For There is Another Battle to Win

get-your-ass-in-the-impala:

smurflewis:

gaysfinest:

Don’t tell your daughter that when a boy is mean or rude to her it’s because he has a crush on her. Don’t teach her that abuse is a sign of love.

My mom always taught me yell or fight back. Boys would be mean and I would yell back. I would get my ass pinched and I would smack them as hard as I could.

Who alway got in trouble? Me.

They would call my mother and she always came in and lectures my teachers and threatened to sue for making her miss work and treating me poorly.

She always taught my brothers to respect women. The only fights my brothers ever got in was defending women from someone else.

The school tried to call my father once instead of my mother on us. He came in in his full preacher outfit (being a preacher and all) and gave them an entire sermon on what would Jesus day of he was called in. They decided dealing with my mom was better.

I think my favorite story of this is when some kid snapped my bra and I turned around, didn’t even think about it, and punched that little motherfucker right in the nose.

So naturally, I end up in the principal’s office, refusing to apologize. 

“He shouldn’t have put his hands on me and I wouldn’t have hit him!” That’s the only thing I was saying.

These people had the unfortunate luck of catching my dad at home, instead of my mom. So he comes fucking sauntering in there, like he’s Clint fucking Eastwood in some western movie and looks at me. 

“Melissa, did you punch him?” 

“Yes.” I said. 

“Why?” 

“Because he snapped my bra strap.” 

And he turns his squinty eyed glare to the principal and says, “You’re telling me my daughter is in trouble because that squirrely looking kid put his hands on her and she chose to defend herself? That’s what you are saying to me.” 

“Well, sir-” The man kind of stuttered because my dad is kind of intimidating in the quiet sort of way that kind of whispers in the back of your mind that this person could be dangerous. “Melissa did make it physical.” 

“No. That kid put his hands on my daughter. Are you saying my daughter cannot defend herself when some boy decides to put hands on her? Is that what you are teaching my girl?” 

I didn’t get suspended that day.  

^^YOU.  YES.  I LOVE YOU.  LET’S TELL THESE STORIES.

Let me tell you a little story about the time I learned what boys could do.  Let me tell you about when I was in fourth grade and a boy cornered my skinny underdeveloped ass at recess, day after day, and grabbed my thigh to cop a feel while he threatened to break it, under the eye of the teacher.  Let me tell you about how I was too damaged-confused-inept to know that sex and violence could go hand in hand, but went home and cried anyway because I knew a threat when I felt it.  Let me tell you about how my mother hugged me tight and promised that I was worth something, and then sat me down and said ‘Baby bear, you do what you have to do,’ said ‘Baby bear, if he puts his hands on you and you feel scared, you make him take his hands off.’  Let me tell you about how one day I reached my limit and punched him in the face, shaking so hard my teeth chattered.  Let me tell you about how the teacher, the woman who had seen what he did every day, shouted at me for attacking him and marched me down to the principal’s office while the boy went to the nurse.  Let me tell you about how I got detention and a sentence to the prison of the school counselor for ‘anger management issues’ while the boy wandered around without a single bruise.  Let me tell you about how I got a handwritten death threat in my backpack, in the boy’s handwriting, and how the principal and the teachers did nothing while my parents fought for me and I raged and checked window locks and signed up for martial arts.  Let me tell you about how my child-self, abused physically and emotionally by her extended family, blamed herself for everything, everything, everything, and how the counselor taught me that it was my fault, taught me to torture myself with guilt over using violence.

Let me tell you a little story about the time when I realized that violence is sometimes the only answer you have.  Let me tell you about when I was eleven in a tiny town in Montana, and I’d been fighting with an older boy for months.  Let me tell you about how he made me feel like a rabbit facing a fox, or about how his two sisters, both over six years his senior, were terrified of him, or about how his parents couldn’t control him.  Let me tell you about how I admitted, shamefaced, to my parents that I just couldn’t stand to be in a room with him, and my mother sat me down again, and this time she said things like “Stay with witnesses” and “Don’t be afraid to run” and “Go for the throat, for the nose, for the balls” and “Get him on the ground” and “Be brutal.”  Let me tell you about how he caught me alone in a room and pinned me to a wall and kissed me hard, and how I slipped out under his arm and ran like the hounds of hell were nipping at my heels, straight into a room full of adults.  Let me tell you about how he caught me anyway, yanked me around and punched me in the stomach.  Let me tell you about how I answered his punch with my own, one-two-three, nose-groin-chokehold, and forced him to the ground as he gasped for air.  Let me tell you about how I shook with adrenaline this time and how his sisters thanked me and cried with relief and how I held my chin high.

Let me tell you about the eighteen-year-old who decided he was dating me when I was fourteen, hands all over me at a summer festival, and when I punched him he laughed at me for playing ‘hard to get.’  Let me tell you about the two boys in high school who harassed me for two years, who made me so worried I brought a knife to school, who only stopped when I slammed one of them into a table for touching me, pinning him by the throat as I described what I would do to him if he tried again.  Let me tell you about the boy just this year who attacked me in my own dorm room, pinned me to my roommate’s bed and forced his tongue into my mouth, his hand down my shirt and under my bra, and how I jammed my thumb so hard into his trachea he choked, and how he called his assault a ‘romantic gesture’.

Let me tell you about ‘boys will be boys.’  Let me tell you about ‘ignore them and they’ll go away.’  Let me tell you about ‘there’s never a reason for violence.’  Let me tell you about ‘You should never hurt someone, no matter what they did to you.’  Let me tell you about ‘he must have a crush on you.’  Let me tell you about ‘why didn’t you tell a teacher.’

Let me tell you.

And then you tell me.

(via adelindschade)

A random guy paid me a compliment and why it was okay

caseywolfe07:

thegirlwhowillforeverwait:

sassyspn:

So, in starbucks today, a random guy came up to my and told me I was very pretty and nice eyes.

And, as a feminist, I was okay with it.

Because he did it correctly.

He stood four feet away from me and started out with “excuse me” and waited until I nodded before approaching. He then introduced himself and we shook hands and then he gave a compliment and went on his way.

He didnt catcall. He didnt harass. He didnt use inappropriate language. He asked for permission.

Take note, gentlemen.

i just loved the fact that he actually WAITED for her CONSENT

BEFORE approaching her

and not only that

he didn’t sexualize her

i mean

finally, someone gets it

To the morons that say it can’t be done.  Mmhmm…  We aren’t saying we don’t like compliments.  We’re saying we don’t like being harressed, we don’t like being cat-called, we don’t like to be treated like we’re an object…

A very nice veteran and I had a nice conversation before I went into the store to do my shopping (he was selling things for a veteran charity), and when I came out he gave me a faux rose and told me how it made his day to talk to a very nice and pretty young lady.  This my dears is a gentleman.  This made my day.  I still have this flower about four years later.  DO IT RIGHT.

And approaching someone politely and introducing yourself is so important.

I have some issues with men I don’t know very well interacting with me.  But one of my most cherished memories–the one I go back to when I’m having a terrible day or when I decide that men are all pure evil–is of this time I was working at a drink stand at a festival.  I looked like a goddamn mess, dressed in a bright green stock volunteer shirt after three hours standing in a food tent.  This guy, a few years older than me, came up to me, introduced himself, remarked that he worked on one of the rides up the hill, and asked if he could have a coffee.  He talked to me like a competent adult, helped me clean up his coffee like a champ when I was a clumsy-ass fucker and knocked it over, told me a few jokes at his own expense to make me feel better after the coffee thing, and then went “You know, I just wanted to tell you that you really made my day.”  And I’m awkward as hell, so I kind of laughed and went “You must need better days.”  I expected him to chuckle and leave it at that, so imagine my surprise when instead he looked genuinely upset and protested “No, really, I came down here for coffee and instead I met a great girl.”  He remarked on how smart and funny he thought I was and added that I was so gorgeous I even made the volunteer shirt look good.  He asked me out, I had to say no because I was about to leave for college, and he just shrugged, smiled, and said “Take it as a compliment then, beautiful.”  I never saw him again, and he probably doesn’t remember that I exist, never mind imagining for a second how much that meant to me, someone with four sexual assaults under my belt by that point.  He was complimentary, funny, well-mannered, and above all he was respectful.  At no point did I feel threatened by him or his interest, nor did I ever feel like he would become angry or violent when I turned him down.

That was two years ago.

If I ever have kids, or my friends ever have kids, that’s the story I’m going to tell them when they ask what a good guy acts like.  Not a nice guy–a GOOD one.

(Source: whatifwedidnt, via cthulhu-with-a-fez)

nextyearsgirl:

“I’m not vaccinating my kids because they’ll build up immunity naturally anyway”

HEY, THIS IS IMPORTANT.  I WILL TRY TO BE CLEAR AND CONCISE.

Whooping cough (pertussis) is making a comeback, largely because people tend to be unaware of the fact that the vaccine OR natural immunity only last for seven years.  Now, if you’re relatively healthy, have no pre-existing respiratory conditions (including asthma, folks), and are between sixteen and, oh, forty-five, then whooping cough is probably just going to be a pain in the ass–you’ll cough for a while, it’ll be uncomfortable, but you’ll probably be fine, because your immune system will eventually crush it.

IF YOU DO NOT FIT ALL THREE OF THOSE CONDITIONS, WHOOPING COUGH WILL PROBABLY FUCK YOU UP REALLY BAD.  LIKE, POTENTIALLY LETHAL BAD.  Remember, folks, whooping cough used to be a major killer.  I do not fuck around with this sort of thing.

Story time: once upon a time, Moran was a sickly little baby who lived with a bunch of other people in a commune (forgive my parents their trusting youth, they are now appropriately cynical of everyone and everything).  Naturally, these alternative hippie people didn’t like getting their asses vaccinated.  Moran, being an infant, had a limit on what vaccinations she could get.  So when one of the people in the commune got a persistent cough, Moran ended up with whooping cough at ten months old.  

Now, let me be clear, I had a serious proclivity to being extremely sick.  It wasn’t genetic or even inherent to my body (my immune system is actually superior to most people’s, probably because I was sick so much), it was a result of the environment, but obviously my pediatrician was more interested in keeping me alive in the short term than exposing me to possibly hazardous or weakening bacteria, even in the form of vaccinations.  So even if I’d been old enough, I probably wouldn’t have been vaccinated, because my immune system was so crippled that it would have been very problematic.  I got whooping cough anyway, and the thing about whooping cough is, well, the treatments can be rough, and in my situation I couldn’t have withstood them.  And they don’t always work.

Let me hit you with a few numbers.  Thirty percent.  Three-zero.  Losing thirty percent of your body weight (assuming that you’re not obese) is lethal.  Whooping cough is a massive drain on your body’s resources, and on top of that it’s hard to eat through the coughing fits.

L'il Baby Moran dropped twenty-five percent of her body weight in four weeks.  An infant who had no genetic disorders or exceptional health problems that wouldn’t have been resolved by a move into a better constructed non-commune almost died of this very preventable disease.  Less than twenty years ago.  Currently, I am very healthy, although I still tend to get respiratory issues more than anything else, but it took not weeks, not months, but years to regain that weight loss because it was so extreme.  I am also highly allergic to the new TDaP (tetanus, diptheria, and pertussis) vaccine; it causes me to spike a massive fever and hallucinate vividly horrifying images for forty-eight hours.  Yes, I did find that out by testing it, and for a while we thought I would be at risk for all three permanently, because I couldn’t handle the newest shot.  I still get vaccinated for those diseases (with an earlier form of the shot, so there’s no major reaction) to protect myself and others.  

So let’s just be clear here: you might think that your kids will get natural immunity to this sort of thing and be fine.  But you might also risk their death.  Herd immunity aside (although for fuck’s sake, get vaccinated even if all three of those conditions I mentioned earlier are true for you, because you’ll be protecting other people who can’t get the shot, and those three conditions are no guarantee that you’ll be fine), you will actually literally risk your child’s life.  Their life, not their comfort or their mood.  Their life.

That makes you a bad parent by any definition.  

Protect yourself, protect your friends, protect your children.  Get vaccinated.

(via adelindschade)