White privilege is the privilege to be fucked up because of your own life (e.g. parents, middle school bullies, terrible experiences…).
What has fucked me up beside my own life is:
- the weight of every hate crime. the constant worry about what do I have to do and who do I have to become to avoid that.
- the trauma that has transferred from generation to generation. the utter sadness that such horrible things happened in the past and the guilty relief that I feel that I was born now and not back then.
- having to deal with centuries old racism/ethnicism
PS. I use “white” as a blanket term here. I think this applies to any kind of majority-disenfranchised minority situation.
PPS. We all deserve so much therapy. All of us, including people who are fucked up only because of their lives.
I never went to a Mary-Kay party that didn’t make me feel ugly.
I got curious so I looked it up. This is from Reasons to Stay Alive by
Matt Haig.
I was just talking with a friend about how by dictating what “beautiful” should be, our culture limits out ability to see the beauty in the world. There is nothing inherently ugly about things our culture does not consider “beautiful”. We were talking about how awful it was that our culture was actively making our perceptions of the world ugly by blinding us to so much beauty. And I was thinking is this might be about control or power. No, Mr. Haig is right. It is about money. Our culture is set up in such a way that people profit from us not seeing the beauty in the world. And that is just sad.
I chose to wake up every morning to see the true beauty in the world and to shed the power our culture has on my perception a little bit each day.
I see you and to me you are beautiful. Do not let money hungry evil corporations or our corrupted culture make you think otherwise! Let this be our revolution.
So you mean to tell me that just by reblogging this I’m ruining an organizations plan, wasting them money, and uncovering some shitbag humans awful behaviour?
T R I P L E K I L L
1) Never forget.
2) This officer got a lot of hate. I feel that such hate is misplaced. He is not the first or the last officer to treat peaceful protestors violently. This hatred should be directed towards the police culture we currently have that allowed him to think that he could get away with what he did. Unfortunately and scarily, the problem we have is much bigger than this single officer. This officer should pay for this actions but we cannot stop there. The whole police culture should start paying for its sins. AND IT NEEDS TO CHANGE.
3) I find UC Davis’ reaction appalling. AND a waste of money. Hey UC Davis, hire me! I will tell you how you turn this around. You become a beacon for free speech and peaceful protest. You atone for what happened and then take a thousand steps forward by fighting against such things to happen in the future. Nothing short of that will cleanse your reputation or your soul. Does not change matters to get rid of a single person who was in charge. Again like the previous point, this event did not happen because of a single person. Just allowing that person to call the police for a peaceful protest demonstrates that the problem here is systemic. People are aware of this. Your reputation will remain in shit as long as you keep acting this way.
This is about Sci-Hub. yeah we get it.. gatekeep knowledge and protect the interests of capital…
Listen, this is serious.
Do not use the website called Sci-Hub!
It lets people access scientific articles for free. This is dangerous. It helps the free flow of knowledge and reduces the competitive edge of all the people who worked really hard to have been born into a wealth.
Like, it’s literally a website where you can type in the DOI of an article and read it, without ever having to pay the publisher who exploited the author.
So, again, do not, under any circumstance, use Sci-Hub. I mean, can you imagine a world where knowledge is free and easily accessible to everyone? Even, y'know, poor people?
Libgen also has many books online, including textbooks, searchable by name, author, and ISBN. Can you imagine textbook companies not getting their hard-earned income from poor college students? Here is the link just so you make sure that you never accidentally stumble across this horrible, unethical website.
Oh, and while we’re talking about books, if you’ve managed to stay clear from Libgen, definitely don’t go to zlibrary, where you can also find a lot of textbooks, but unfortunately they’re completely free.
nooo don’t use sites that make academic papers accessible to everyone, why would you do such a terrible thing
oh and in case none of those HORRIBLE sites dont have the article you need, DON’T email the author of the paper. They aren’t paid by the publishing company, and will give you the paper for FREE. HOW HORRIBLE
Ok, I saw people mentioning to be safe on pirating websites within the comments. Yeah, that’s true. My general outlook is that everyone is constantly trying to steal your personal information including google and facebook. For normal tracking issues, I use firefox, duckduckgo, ad blockers and try to be overall careful about the websites I use. I’m pretty sure I am not careful enough… Anyways, I would not know how to be especially safe on the pirating websites, though. Any info on that would be appreciated.
I did want to comment on the issue of publishing. Most research is funded publicly. The researchers have their salaries and on top of that get public grants for research. When they apply to journals to be published journals send their articles to reviewers. These reviewers are other research who are doing this kind of for free (I guess technically this is covered in their salary because universities expect their professors to be reviewers). So the only thing the journal does is possibly actually publishing it on paper. Which was important back in the day because how would it be dispersed otherwise. But it is certainly not relevant anymore. I understand their need for payment to a certain degree since there are employees there I guess. But this whole system seems plain out corrupt to me. Research is publicly funded. Reviewers work for free. How do you justify the gate keeping of science in this case??
Back to the issue at hand…
Not everything is on sci-hub (yet*)
So some other tips for finding an article:
- Try Google Scholar
- Google the title of the article with quotes. It might be on a random website like the researcher’s personal website
- Google the journal. Some journals are not on Google scholar but have the articles free on their websites.
- Check out your library website. Some libraries have a lot of subscriptions to journals. On a related note, ask your friends to check out their libraries for you. Back in the day I would ask my facebook friends to see if an article was in their libraries. It worked almost every time.
Also, when I say “google it” I mean use your preferred search engine. Oops, I forgot Google does not want us to use “googling something” to mean “look it up on internet”. Shoot, my bad.
The older I get, the more I realize I did not use to understand what feminism was
Here is the thing. I have always supported equality above all. Even when I didn’t understand people, I stood strong that they have the right to choose their own lives and still be my equal.
But I am ashamed to admit that at a certain level I felt superior to some people. As a woman who has decided her life to academic and to fighting the system, I used to think that I was better than certain types of woman. I do not even know when I started realizing how wrong I was. I guess it was so gradual that I cannot pinpoint a specific point of time.
One type of woman I looked down upon was the ones whose goal in life was to get married. No other ambitions. Not really other hobbies. This is not a weird generalization, it is based on people I know. I thought women who had other ambitions and also wanted to get married were fine but those with no other ambitions… Those were sad. I cannot believe it took me this long to realize that not everyone is the same. Some people want to be good at a job, some at a hobby and some at raising a family. AND THAT IS FINE. I am not sure why I ever thought thought that it was not. Maybe it was related to the influence of the patriarchical culture we live in. The only women who are deemed valuable are the ones who possess various “manly” attributes like caring about a job more than a family. Maybe it was because that was the default option I have always felt getting shoved down my throat and I thought that these women were the epitome of embracing the system. In any case, feminisim means women has a right to chose whatever the frak they want for themselves and that is beautiful. All choices are beautiful.
A second type of woman I looked down upon was the “gold digger”. In movies we have seen very exaggerated versions of these women but in my life I have seen many examples of regular women doing this. These women I have only made my peace with very recently. Maybe it was the fact that with their high IQ and high emotional intelligence I have always thought they could have accomplished so many important things. But I have finally understood that these women are frakking survivers. The current system we live in (at least in the barely developing country I am from) is absolutly against women. We get paid less. We get less number of opportunities. The media culture is based on making us feel bad so that we spent more time, energy AND money on things they deem importnat. These women made very different choices than I have BUT they worked towards living a better life than the system would have ever given them. And I have come to stan these women. They cheated the system. Good for them.
I have fought the sytem as far as I can remember. I used to think I was better than the women who either went along with the system or cheated the system. I thought there was a noble way of action. But you know what I realized, as long as you are not hurting people who the frak am I to judge you. The only thing I judge is the system with its hierarchy and categorical way of thinking. I realized that if I really want to fight the system, I need reject their ways of thinking and embrace the true meaning of equality behind feminism.
I have read Audre Lorde’s quote “For the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.” for the first time almost four years ago. I think I am finally starting to understand what she might have meant in that speech.
I have been so confused about how so many people can see one show when they watch Sherlock (a show about a detective who is in love with Irene/Molly and has a best friend named John) while so many others sees another show (a show about a detective who is in love with his best friend John). Are we all not watching the same show. Is this about wish fulfillment? I have finally realized the reason. This is about people’s fundamental beliefs about LGBTQIA+ rights and issues, more particularly how people digest queer coding.
I believe Sherlock is queer coded. I think Moffat did so in order to establish Sherlock as quirky, just a tad evil and maybe even a bit neuroatypical. I think one group of people saw a queer-coded Sherlock and took in his character just as Moffat intended: a straight guy (isn’t that the default setting?) who is quirky, just a tad evil and maybe even a bit neuroatypical. Another group saw Sherlock and took his queer coding at face value and thought that Sherlock is gay. And here emanates the two different viewing experiences of the Sherlock fandom.
I have a friend who would argue with me about this. She would say that I was drawing strict lines about what is to be a man and to be masculine. She would argue that it is refreshing that Sherlock can be read as a straight character who is a bit feminine. I have 2 big issues for this argument. (1) Sherlock does not just happen to be effeminate. His queer coding serves a purpose. It is basically a plot device. If Greg was effeminate that would be fine. But Sherlock is queer coded in order to establish him as “extraordinary” and therefore it is not okay. Because being effeminate should not mean that one is not ordinary. (2) All the gay jokes!! LGBTQIA+ people are still disenfranchised. One cannot turn “being gay” or “being effeminate” into a joke, especially if this joke is being made by non-LGBTQIA+ people. If Sherlock was actually gay, most of the jokes in the show would be not about “being gay” but about making fun of the “straight is default” mindset of the general public. Therefore, the reading of Sherlock is an effeminate straight man means that there are numerous toxic jokes about LGBTQIA+ people and that is simply not okay.
Here is one of the best definitions I found for queer coding thanks to @theroguefeminist:
Hi y’all. The canon S4 of Sherlock was so bad for me that it ruined everything that came before. I have not been able to watch any Sherlock since S4 came out. And I missed watching my boys so I decided to reject the canon S4 and create a new S4 out of the existing footage. The result is not my ideal S4. There are so many lovely fix-it fics that do my boys more justice. BUT I am quite happy with the results. I am even planning on doing a Sherlock marathon soon. Anyways, I wanted to share this on here in case other people wanted a different version of S4. There are 2 episodes. A 30 min one and an hour long one. I see the 30 min one as the appetizer. It sets up story details for the next episode (which is the important one in my eyes). I was gonna do a single episode but that meant too much was happening in a single episode and there was more existing footage I could use so I made the little one as well. Plus my boys look so dashing in S4!
I cannot believe we’re still tearing Cinderella down! 2018 only has a few months left and we’re still doing this, we’re still painting her as the weakest Disney princess and we’re still painting her weakness as a bad thing?
Why?
Why are people so caught up on bashing this princess?
“The movie is so simplistic—”
In what way is it possibly simplistic?!
“She didn’t work hard—”
YES, SHE DID!
“Well, okay, but the fairy godmother still had to come in—”
Yep, I remember the movie too, and the countless stories on which it’s based.
“So the fairy godmother was the one who caused the happily ever after.”
She sure was, now, what’s your point?
No, really, what’s your point? Is the point that Cinderella is somehow weak because she wasn’t 100% in control of her own life? Seems like a pretty disgusting opinion to have when the whole movie is about an abuse victim finding a way out of her horrible situation. So Cinderella wasn’t the one who got herself out. So what? Instead of looking the movie at its bare surface, maybe try analyzing it with a bit more thought and tact. You might see something a little different. A magical transformation, if you will.
Because Cinderella did work hard.
And guess what we learned from that?
You can work
and work
and work
And there will still be people out there who will try to tear you apart:
Literally.
And that sucks. It’s a horrible lesson to learn but it is something we will all face in our lifetimes. There will always be people who will try to tear us down, there will always be people who will try to rip us apart, until we’re in a low place:
Until it seems like there’s no hope…
Until it seems like you’re too weak to get out on your own…
And maybe you are.
Maybe you are too weak to get out on your own. Maybe you’re not the strongest woman in the world. Maybe you’re not capable of screaming at the top of your lungs or brandishing a weapon or throwing a punch. Maybe you’re not able to get out of something on your own. Maybe you hit a low point and maybe you have no way out of it. Not alone. But that’s just it.
You’re not alone.
Even at your lowest point, someone will come help you.
You don’t have to do it all alone.
It’s okay to have a little help when you have nowhere else to turn.
Cinderella is the story about an abuse victim who is unable to get out of her toxic situation by herself and just when she begins to lose all hope, is able to get help from an unlikely source. It’s the story about a girl who needs help getting to her happily ever after and that’s okay.
Give us advocates:
They deserve their happily ever afters!
Give us warriors:
They deserve their happily ever afters!
Give us fighters:
They deserve their happily ever afters!
Give us girls who are not advocates, girls who are not warriors, girls who are not fighters, girls who still deserves their happily ever afters:
This reminds me of that quote that Mr. Rogers said his mother told him: “Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.”
I technically don’t disagree with most of this, but I’ve been thinking about it again lately and I’m realizing that the problem isn’t that Cinderella is an abuse victim and needs help to get out of her situation, but rather that it frames her passivity as a virtue and tells kids (especially girls) who might find themselves in abusive situations that they shouldn’t even try to resist or escape or complain and everything will work out alright for them as long as they’re always cheery and unconditionally kind because only people who behave perfectly and do everything they’re told deserve to be rewarded with happiness. Or at least, that is a very common way that the story is interpreted and taught, which I think makes it significant enough to criticize. Martyrdom isn’t something to despise, but it’s not something to admire either.
I don’t like Cinderella. Actually, most Disney princesses at this point in my life. I do agree with most of what OP said but to me @andykarlsnemesis makes an excellent point.
I feel really strongly about this and some might say too much. But being from a third world country this is what I see around me. I constantly see women being beat down by their situations. So many of my female friends are stuck in a situation that is not good for them. I think I would be more okay with Cinderella if this was a girl biding her time for a chance at a better future, gets help from the fairy godmother and seizes that chance. But that’s not really the perspective of her in most adaptations. And I do hate that her chance at a better life is marrying a prince. Especially because that is what most women around me think. They think marrying a guy is their only option out of their bad situation. But you know what happens when women marry out of desperation, they end up in a new bad situation with a marriage they don’t want. (Even if the guy is nice. Because she may not be ready for a marriage. Because it turns out marriage is not for her. Because she might not want kids and that is not something a married woman “should” want. Because she might not be straight.)
I realize that this movie was not made for us. It was made for first worlders. But women’s rights are still an issue in the USA today. I am not going to say that all my American female friends are in situations as bad as my third worlder female friends; however, I can say that about half of my female American friends have been in really bad situations (sexual assault, abusive boyfriend, abusive husband and so on). No person should go through that. And no person should put up with that. Therefore, I do not believe in normalizing passively putting up with bad situations for females anywhere.
So I recently got surgery two weeks ago and on the day of the surgery, they had me waiting in a cold room in just a gown because they had to do a pregnancy test. I had just gotten off my period literally two days ago and unless I was miraculously the next Virgin Mary, I’m 100% not pregnant. The nurse barely looks up from her charts to acknowledges this before insisting that I had to take another test. If I didn’t take another one, they would immediately cancel my surgery. It was hospital policy.
I’ve had this condition all my life but its gotten completely unbearable the past few years and I’ve been actively going to the doctors the last two years trying different methods to allievate my pain and this surgery was my last chance at any type of pain free life. It took 6 months to schedule and if I had to wait another second, I was going kill somebody. Safe to say I was a little pissed. I sat in that freezing room, irritated with an IV needle sticking in my hand, waiting on the nurse to find records of my pee test that I did less than a two week ago at their request. She couldn’t find the test results. She handed me an empty container with a cheery smile and an obnoxious prep talk that I did not ask for and told me to fill it.
One of the preparatory requirements they gave me was that the night before the surgery I couldn’t consume any foods or liquid (water especially). So I couldn’t pee. I asked for some water and she reluctantly gave me a cup with two sip fulls.
My surgery was scheduled for 9 A.M, they told me to come in at 7:30 A.M. It was already 11:41 A.M. when I had to retake the test and I didn’t go in until almost 1 P.M. The fact that I had to go through that extra hoop and have the threat of my surgery being cancelled hung over me like a noose just because of a pregnancy test is beyond aggravating. People love perpetually valuing the potential of a possible fetus over the lives of already living women. We always seem to come second no matter what.
That’s sounds extremely stressful. I’m sorry you had to go through that on top of everything else. We aren’t effing incubators!
This is so common amongst girls and women dealing with medical care
[Medical/Miscarriage TW] Earlier this year I went to the ER on a Monday night with terrible abdominal pain, cramps, throwing up, the whole shebang. They did an ultrasound but couldn’t see anything so they attributed it to a bad stomach bug, gave me IV fluids & anti-nausea meds, and sent me home Tuesday morning.
They didn’t want to do a CT scan, you see, because ‘We don’t want to irradiate your uterus unnecessarily.’ Here’s the thing. There was NO way I was pregnant AT ALL because I was literally still suffering & passing the remnants of a fucking spontaneous miscarriage. Not only that, I told them: the miscarriage was a surprise and an accident. I do not want children, had not been trying to have a baby, and had not known I was pregnant until it stopped (it was a weird year).
I was severely dehydrated and on morphine but I do remember telling them ‘I don’t care about my uterus, I’m not using it.’ But because of their concern for any future potential other fetuses, they didn’t do a CT scan. And 20 hours later I got to experience the worst pain of my life, my first CT scan, and my first surgery when my appendix stopped just being infected and decided to go ahead and burst.
I don’t usually add my own $0.02 to posts but misogyny in medicine needs to stop.
My tubes are tied, after two kids. I’m married to a woman. They still make me take a pregnancy test.
I was in the ER because I fucked up my wrist and needed x-rays, and they made me take a pregnancy test even after I told them that not only is it impossible for me to be pregnant (because I have never had sex), but that because I am a trans man and I am on Testosterone, I have not had my period in several months, which makes it even less likely that I would be pregnant. I also signed a waiver saying that I would allow them to take x-rays because I was confirming that I was not pregnant, and they made me take the test anyway. And this was all at one in the morning.
Just fyi, in some states the pregnancy tests are legally required but in others it is not. However, the doctors don’t tend to tell you this did bit but try to force your hand anyways. Ask about the law. Because in my experience they will not tell you willingly. I had a bad experience about this as well. At one point, it occurred to me to ask if this test was required by the law of the state we were in. The doctor had the audacity to tell me “Not here, no. But it is required in other states.” Wow, I still get upset over this experience.
