MAURA THESE GUYS ARE FOR YOU
ALSDJKFKSDSALKDFJWEIROSGFA;SLDJFASLDKF WHALES
(Source: fuck-yeahcamping)
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(trigger warning: rape, rape jokes) Here is why I refuse to take rape jokes sitting down…
Because 6% of college-aged men, slightly over 1 in 20, will admit to raping someone in anonymous surveys, as long as the word “rape” isn’t used in the description of the act—and that’s the conservative estimate. Other sources double that number (pdf).
A lot of people accuse feminists of thinking that all men are rapists. That’s not true. But do you know who think all men are rapists?
Rapists do.
They really do. In psychological study, the profiling, the studies, it comes out again and again.
Virtually all rapists genuinely believe that all men rape, and other men just keep it hushed up better. And more, these people who really are rapists are constantly reaffirmed in their belief about the rest of mankind being rapists like them by things like rape jokes, that dismiss and normalize the idea of rape.
If one in twenty guys (or more) is a real and true rapist, and you have any amount of social activity with other guys like yourself, then it is almost a statistical certainty that one time hanging out with friends and their friends, playing Halo with a bunch of guys online, in a WoW guild, in a pick-up game of basketball, at a bar, or elsewhere, you were talking to a rapist. Not your fault. You can’t tell a rapist apart any better than anyone else can. It’s not like they announce themselves.
But, here’s the thing. It’s very likely that in some of these interactions with these guys, at some point or another, someone told a rape joke. You, decent guy that you are, understood that they didn’t mean it, and it was just a joke. And so you laughed.
Or maybe you didn’t laugh. Maybe it just wasn’t a very funny joke. So maybe you just didn’t say anything at all.
And, decent guy who would never condone rape, who would step in and stop rape if he saw it, who understands that rape is awful and wrong and bad, when you laughed? When you were silent?
That rapist who was in the group with you, that rapist thought that you were on his side. That rapist knew that you were a rapist like him. And he felt validated, and he felt he was among his comrades.
You. The rapist’s comrade.
And if that doesn’t make you feel sick to your stomach, if that doesn’t make you want to throw up, if that doesn’t disturb you or bother you or make you feel like maybe you should at least consider not participating in that kind of humor anymore, not abiding it in your presence, not greeting it with silence…
Well, maybe you aren’t as opposed to rapists as you claim.
"— Why Rape Jokes Are Never “Ok” (via sarahtheimpossible)
(via sarahtheimpossible)
(via calcifer)
"Some people say, “Never let them see you cry.” I say, if you’re so mad you could just cry, then cry. It terrifies everyone."
— Tina Fey (via disharmonious)
Greece’s Jewish community on Monday sent its members a laconic, factual e-mail. Without any interpretive adornment, the message conveyed a few dry facts. In elections staged on Sunday, the Golden Dawn neo-Nazi party won 7 percent of the country’s popular vote - a tally twice the minimum threshold level required to send representatives to parliament.
The update also included information about districts in which Jews live, and also biographies of the delegates that the far-right party will send to parliament. All told, Golden Dawn will have 21 parliament seats out of 300.
The day after the elections, Greece’s Jewish community is still trying to make sense of the results and new facts, and is cautious about drawing conclusions about the stunning gains notched by the militant, ultra-nationalist party which seeks to restore Greece’s national pride and expel foreigners. Asked about the first, postelection step to be taken by his party, Nikolaos Michaloliakos - Golden Dawn’s founder and chairman - responded: “All illegal immigration will be stopped. They [foreigners] will have to leave - they must leave.”
The explosion of rage following the elections has left members of Greece’s Jewish community - and many others - confused. It is not difficult to read signs of concern about the rise of extremism in the country. While fascist parties are not new on Greece’s political landscape, the country’s current economic crisis has stirred an unprecedented number of outraged citizens to turn to extremist politics.
Some 750,000 voters in Greece cast ballots for a party that expressly articulates neo-Nazi sentiments, and which publicly sings Nazi songs and openly bandies about Nazi symbols. David Saltiel, president of Greece’s Central Board of Jewish Communities, issued a careful statement after the elections, saying that “the Jewish community is examining the situation.”
Speaking from Salonika in a telephone conversation, Saltiel added that he was surprised by the number of votes Golden Dawn received. “In the last national elections, they didn’t pass the threshold level, but in this election, voters banded together in protest against the country’s two large parties, and that helped the small parties.”
In the aftermath of the elections, it will be difficult for any of the parties to cobble together a coalition, and so a second round of balloting is likely. Saltiel does not find that scenario daunting. “Should there be another ballot, we hope the Greeks will think things through, and that the level of support for Dawn will decrease. In any event, I think the parliament will isolate the extreme right. We are examining the situation; the Greeks are not afraid, and democracy will continue.”
Saltiel added: “Right now, Golden Dawn is not coming out against Jews; instead, it attacks immigrants. Still, there are right-wing extremists, and we need to assess the situation and see how Greece’s democracy will deal with this. There is no reason for worry.”
Greece’s Jewish community is comprised of 5,000 people. Most are secular or traditional, and only a few go out in public with visible Jewish symbols. One who does is the Chabad emissary in Salonika, Yoel Kaplan. “As one who wears Hasidic clothing in the street I encounter some unpleasant words, but not acts,” Kaplan says.
Verbal violence
When exit poll results were announced on Sunday, he says, “Golden Dawn supporters in Salonika took to the streets, and it was a mess. I don’t flee the streets - when I need to go out, I go out. Mainly, the threat is dealing with verbal violence; that has no meaning, for me.”
Kaplan insists that Golden Dawn’s presence has been limited recently to street rallies, though he acknowledges that in the past two years, there have been arson incidents against synagogues in Corfu and elsewhere.
“Now, Golden Dawn members feel emboldened,” he says, “and you can’t ignore the neo-Nazi atmosphere that is heating up here. At one of their street rallies, somebody said to me something like, ‘You Jews control everything here.’ Yet, on the other hand, what they’ve taken on as their main agenda is attacking immigrants who come to Greece from African and Balkan states, and this is happening because the borders are open. They don’t seem to have any current grudge against the Jews.”
Nelly Kapon, a prominent figure in Salonika’s Jewish community, believes the rise of the extreme right derives from rage felt by many citizens in Greece against illegal immigrants. Still, she is wary of Golden Dawn’s intentions regarding the country’s Jewish population. “The party is not against Jews now, but this is a Nazi party, and they don’t try to hide that,” she says.
Discussing the past activities and agendas of other right-wing parties in Greece, Kapon notes that Golden Dawn has a much more extremist, violent-sounding platform. “Golden Dawn is much more extremist, and now it has won 21 seats in the parliament,” she says.
The resurgence of white supremacist ideology in Europe is deeply concerning and must be stopped by any means necessary.
(via girl-in-a-wheelchair)
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Men who want to flirt with women have to realize: Women live in a state of continual vigilance about sexual safety. It’s like having a mild case of hay fever that never goes away. It’s not debilitating. You’re not weak. You’re not afraid. You just suck it up and get on with your life. It’s nothing that’s going to stop you from making discoveries, or climbing mountains, or falling in love. Sometimes you can almost forget about it. It doesn’t mean it’s not there, subtly sucking your energy. You learn to avoid situations that make it worse and seek out conditions that make it better.
If a female stranger is wary around you, it is not because she suspects you are a rapist, or that all men are rapists. It’s because a general level of circumspection is what vigilance requires. Don’t take it personally.
If this frustrates you, try to remember that women are blamed for lapsed vigilance. If a woman does get raped, everyone rushes to see where she let her guard down. Was she drinking? Was she alone? Was she wearing a short skirt? Did she go to a strange man’s room for coffee at 4am?
A woman must be seen to be vigilant as well as be vigilant. If she is deemed insufficiently vigilant, she will be at least partly blamed for any sexual violence that befalls her. If she’s regarded as downright reckless, that “evidence” can be used to completely exonerate her rapist. If it comes down to a he said/she said dispute over whether sex was consensual, as so many rape cases do, the dispute becomes a referendum on whether the woman seems like the sort of reckless person who would have sex with a stranger.
If a woman does go back to a strange man’s hotel room at 4am, even if she only wants a coffee and conversation, she’s more or less given him the power to rape her. No jury is going to believe she went up there for anything but sex. So, don’t be surprised if a stranger reacts badly to that suggestion.
"—
Attention, Space Cadets: Do Not Proposition Women in the Elevator
I wish I didn’t need to reblog stuff like this. I wish people *got it*. But judging from the ridiculous response to these posts, stuff like this clearly still needs to be repeated.
(via lavender-labia)
This actually made me cry. Ugh.
(via m0nikered)
(via bitterbuffalo)
TRIGGER WARNING: RAPE CULTURE, RACISM, VIOLENCE, SEXUAL VIOLENCE, RACIAL VIOLENCE
“What makes Canaanites supposedly worthy of destruction in the biblical narrative and Indian peoples in the eyes of their colonizers is that they both personify sexual sin…
Because Indian bodies are ‘dirty’, they are considered sexually violable and ‘rapable’, and the rape of bodies that are considered inherently impure or dirty simply does not count. For instance, prostitutes are almost never believed when they say they have been raped because the dominant society considers the bodies of sex workers undeserving of integrity and violable at all times. Similarly, the mutilation of Indian bodies, both living and dead, makes it clear that Indian people are not entitled to bodily integrity…
As a consequence of this colonialization, and abuse of their bodies, Indian people learn to internalize self-hatred, because body image is integrally relate to self-esteem. When one’s body is not respected, one begins to hate oneself (Bass and Davis, 1988).” - Sexual Violence as a Tool of Genocide, Andrea Smith (253-254) published in Racism, Colonialism, and Indigeneity in Canada, edited by Martin J. Cannon and Lina Sunseri
Let’s have that again: “When one’s body is not respected, one begins to hate oneself.”
The bill contains provisions to prohibit tax deductions for abortion insurance coverage and abortion services; to provide for a sales tax on abortion; to establish a personhood stance for when life begins; to limit late-term abortions; to prohibit state employees from performing abortions during the workday; and to mandate that doctors tell women that abortion cause breast cancer along with other state-approved health issues.
The bill also allows doctors to withhold medical information from a woman if it might lead her to have an abortion. It prevents medical professionals from facing a medical malpractice suit in the event that withholding the information adversely affects the health of the mother or child. A wrongful death suit could be filed in the event of the mother’s death. (via Huff Post)
What the ACTUAL fuck?
Think about this for a second: the state of Kansas — a legislature that is not made up of medical professionals — just passed a law — a law! — forcing medical professionals to lie to their patients, even if that lie will lead to serious injury or death.
Doctors help people. Doctors go to school for years to learn how to best care for their patients. Doctors swear an oath to do just that… and these politicians have decided to pass a law forcing doctors to do exactly the opposite.
This is criminal. Every single one of those lawmakers should be immediately removed from office, and when the first woman or child dies because of this law, they should all be tried for murder.
What. The. Fuck. Is. Wrong. With. These. People.
Holy dicks that is insane
"Pluto is interesting because it’s fixed on its moon, Charon, and they rotate around each other, constantly staring at each other affectionately, which is kind of a beautiful metaphor but I think that’s one of the reasons why it was demoted. Because I think now to be a proper planet you have to command the authority of others and because the moon and Pluto are sort of existentially attached as equals neither of them can be considered a planet. [Pauses] Sad, but true."
—
Sufjan Stevens on why Pluto had to be a dwarf (via foxandfayvel)
Oh Pluto…
(via securelyonafairywing)
SUFJAN STEVENS, WHAT DO YOU DO WITH YOUR TIME
(via disharmonious)
Checking in with yourself is an act of self-affirmation, a way of reminding yourself that your inner being matters. It is also a way of giving yourself credit for all your efforts. Some good times to check in with yourself include: when you are being triggered, right after talking about what you’ve experienced, right after a therapy session, etc.
Suggestions for How to Check In
- Think about the following questions/statement, and if you journal, consider writing your answers.
This exercise adapted from here.
- What are you thinking right now?
- How are you feeling? Empowered, drained, frightened, ashamed, hopeful, angry, or some other feeling? Recognize these feelings as valid and true.
- What physical discomforts are you experiencing?
- Do you need to contact a trusted friend or seek medical care?
- If you are feeling very frightened, afraid or distressed what can you do right now to take care of yourself emotionally, physically, or mentally?
- Acknowledge the work you have done thus far in healing.
- Share your happiness or joy with someone close to you.
Followers, what are some ways you check in with yourself? Do you have any suggestions for others? What works for you and what doesn’t? What has been your experience with checking in? Is it beneficial for you? Or try these tips and lets us know how they worked! Submit your story or askquestions!
this should be shared as much as possible
