Being thin in this society is so exalted that folks won’t even admit that there are some people who looked better when they were fat.
It’s gross how folks will praise weight loss even if the person was sick, how there are fat people who don’t mind the idea of getting cancer because at least they’ll lose weight and fit that standard like….
We don’t care about health. It’s about being thin by any means necessary. That is how much we hate fat bodies. We actively encourage eating disorders in fat people, with doctors often not even looking for the signs of those disorders because ‘hey, they’re losing weight’
Folks talmbout “I wish I could get me some of that” when they see I’ve lose 10 pounds from a viral infection that had me vomiting and barely eating for weeks.
"This is also why teachers need more resources, smaller class sizes, more adults in the classroom."
“
A student blows up at a teacher, drops the F-bomb. The usual approach at Lincoln – and, safe to say, at most high schools in this country – is automatic suspension. Instead, Sporleder sits the kid down and says quietly: “Wow. Are you OK? This doesn’t sound like you. What’s going on?”
He gets even more specific: “You really looked stressed. On a scale of 1-10, where are you with your anger?” The kid was ready. Ready, man! For an anger blast to his face….”How could you do that?” “What’s wrong with you?”…and for the big boot out of school. But he was NOT ready for kindness.
The armor-plated defenses melt like ice under a blowtorch and the words pour out: “My dad’s an alcoholic. He’s promised me things my whole life and never keeps those promises.” The waterfall of words that go deep into his home life, which is no piece of breeze, end with this sentence: “I shouldn’t have blown up at the teacher.” Whoa.
This is also why teachers need more resources, smaller class sizes, more adults in the classroom.
Something like this happened when I was student teaching in a third grade classroom. During a writing assignment, a boy was not working, muttering swear words at his desk, banging things. Instead of telling him to stop being disruptive or putting his name on the board, I came close and crouched down and said I could see he was feeling upset and asked what was wrong. It turned out he had forgotten his rough draft (they were supposed to be copying their edited rough drafts into a final draft) and he didn’t know what to do now and he figured he was going to get a zero and fail the assignment and be in trouble.
I suggested he could do his best to rewrite his one-page story from memory. Just write as much as you can, give me your best effort and I’ll accept it as your assignment. Well, he was SO HAPPY that he wasn’t just going to straight-up fail that he actually did a great job remembering what his story had been about and rewriting it as best he could. I know this isn’t as big an issue as the alcoholic father, but it’s still a case of finding the cause of the problem vs. punishing the symptom.
But here’s the thing: I couldn’t have done that if I hadn’t been a student teacher in that room, if the regular teacher hadn’t been there to keep the rest of the class on task and quiet. One teacher in a room of thirty kids isn’t always *able* to give that kind of individual attention.
Teachers get so much crap for what they do and don’t do, for the choices they make with the resources they have. Criticism is always necessary, but it needs to be followed up with support.
Let’s hope this will be the year when we stop using language that invalidates transgender and nonbinary people. Our gender is as valid as everyone else’s.
I really don’t believe Molly was capable of killing Bellatrix. Bella is a Dark Lord trained Death Eater who frequently is using dark spells. Molly has been a house-wife for most of her life. Surely in reality she wouldn’t know those spells, let alone have ever used them before. Bella knows more and has been practising her skills (even through Azkaban), and yet Molly wins? I cant believe it.
(Taiga’s note: never, ever estimate the power of a mother protecting her children.)
Molly was part of the Order in the first war. She lost her brothers to Death Eaters. She just lost her son, who was named in honour of one of those brothers. Her daughter, her only daughter, is threatened. You can damn well believe that her conviction was strong and she meant every spell she cast in defense of her family. Of course she knows those spells. Of course she wins.
^^^^ This.
Very early on in writing the series, I remember a female journalist saying to me that Mrs Weasley, ‘Well, you know, she’s just a mother.’ And I was absolutely incensed by that comment. Now, I consider myself to be a feminist, and I’d always wanted to show that just because a woman has made a choice, a free choice to say, ‘Well, I’m going to raise my family and that’s going to be my choice. I may go back to a career, I may have a career part time, but that’s my choice.’ Doesn’t mean that that’s all she can do. And as we proved there in that little battle, Molly Weasley comes out and proves herself the equal of any warrior on that battlefield.
Molly was a warrior before she was a mother. Male soldiers become fathers all the time, I really don’t see how this is a problem.
I haven’t read the book in ages, but wasn’t it demonstrated fairly often that Molly was a powerful witch? Did this person miss that because of the fact she used her powers in a domestic fashion?
“Did this person miss that because of the fact she used her powers in a domestic fashion?“
In a word: yes.
Also just because someone is a housewife doesn’t mean that they aren’t educated or smart. You can be both.
IIRC Molly had, like, an entire HOUSE big enough to house 7 children and a husband obsessed with illegally enchanting muggle items dancing to her tune, flying featherdusters, self-cleaning sinks, food that cooks itself.
That’s kind of a HELL OF A LOT OF MAGIC to be controlling all at one time. And I’ll remind you that proud (inbred) old wizard families like the Gaunts lived in squalid hovels full of dirt and misery, and the Blacks and the Malfoys kept house-elves to keep their houses clean (as did Hogwarts, of course). So it’s not like this is just the bare minimum of what any magical person can do, Molly has got some goddamn GAME. And when she turns that shit on, evil bitches get vaporized.
you know, keith, you really should’ve done more to push fitness when you were here. yeah, I was going to get to that, but the crime-fighting kept getting in the way.
listen ok. so there’s that typical horror trope about the family and the haunted house and yadda yadda.
but like, have a movie where this family has gone through many haunted houses before, to the point where they move into this new one and are like ‘okay. fresh start number seven.’ and then basically throughout the movie avoid and deflect any typical horror event from the house like it’s no big deal.
something’s under the teen girl’s bed? she takes a can of bug spray and some chloroform and uses that shit on the demon creature without turning an eye from whoever she was texting. mom’s cooking and the family’s nowhere to be found? weird creaking noises? she sighs and continues cooking. family comes through the back door later with some blood on them and carrying a few hockey masks. mom doesn’t question it. family looks exhausted and irritated. younger brother walks into his room to find the dog trapped in the wardrobe, wardrobe unable to open? seeping dark smoke and gross liquids? move it and throw some salt around that thang and kick in the back of the wardrobe. dog hops out with a scoff and trots to the door of the room and down the stairs. a shadow follows. lots of growling and snarling and scuffling. a shadow runs fuckin outie back down the hall in fear. dad is in the garage working in the car. car shuts it’s doors and locks them. he is unable to get out. he sighs and starts the car. might as well go get groceries.
family don’t give a fuck.
hello, yes, how much do movies cost and how would I fund this
Vox parsed out the Bureau of Justice Statistics' numbers on incarceration in prisons (excluding jails) and produced this ghastly visualization tracking the transformaiton of America into the country with the highest rate of incarceration in the history of the world.
(more…)
I really imagine Sam Wilson to be a stress baker. World falling apart? Cupcakes it is. Steve getting increasingly reckless? Macaroon time. Arguments? Literally hundreds of cookies
Bucky was the one who figured out that Sam baked as a response to stress because he’s good at recognizing behavioral patterns and minute emotional cues, so every time something new comes out of the oven he goes to check in on Sam like “you know I love your sweet potato pie but are you okay? do I need to make anybody stop anything? cause I don’t want you having problems, man, I’ll settle for pie from the store”
(sometimes Sam is really just baking for fun but he appreciates that consideration for his feelings, even if the idea of Bucky making “anybody stop anything” can be slightly worrisome)
The time Bucky comes home and finds Sam making croissants from scratch he eats three, then rounds up the team to go see Congress about fixing the funding for VA. Pepper has half of one of the Nutella strawberry croissants and calls the President to make sure that he knows exactly what bill will be hand delivered in two hours.
The time Sam’s grounded with a minor injury and Steve and Bucky decide they can totally take that big HYDRA base without air support because they’re terrible, and Natasha drops by to find that Sam’s branched out into candy-making
she leaves immediately (phone in one hand, napkin-wrapped bundle of warm truffles in the other) and within eight hours Steve and Bucky are back completely unscathed because wouldn’t you know it, the base just spontaneously exploded before they even arrived, it was the damndest thing
One day Sam comes in and finds ingredients piled up on every possible surface. Pepper, Nat, Jane, Darcy, and Maria all give him the quivery lip and explain that it has been one really long week. They’ll happily make him dinner every night for a month if he just makes them bread pudding, peach cobbler, and those amazing little tarts. They’ll help, they absolutely will clean up, but for the love of everything they need dessert. All the dessert.
Lifelike reconstruction of a Neanderthal man - Neanderthal museum, Mettmann, Germany
Well you see, Garry, you really can’t top napped obsidian. I know the anatomically modern humans are doing some interesting things with bone, but what you got here is durability, a sleek, user-serviceable design, and an edge that just won’t quit.
This is one of the most common deflections when the issue of how women are portrayed comes up. It’s known as a false equivalence – the idea that two things presented together as equal when in fact they aren’t. In this case, the idea that just because women have exaggerated physiques doesn’t mean they’re sexist because the men are just as exaggerated too. Of course, this doesn’t work for many reasons. To start with, it assumes – falsely – that the things that women find sexy are the same things that guys find sexy; that is, the exaggerated secondary sex characteristics. But we’ll get to that in a second.
The other issue is the reason for the exaggeration. Comics and games are fantasy true, but the fantasy aspect differs when it comes to male and female characters. Male characters are a power fantasy; the large muscles and massive torsos are visual signs that this character is an unstoppable powerhouse. Kratos doesn’t look the way he does because Sony Computer Entertainment did focus-market studies and found that women reacted best to that design; he looks the way he does because he represents the powerful alpha-male that gamers want to be.
The women, on the other hand, are sexual fantasies. These are the rewards for the player – the character’s love-interest, the motivation to complete the game. They’re designed as eye-candy; they’re intended as something to be consumed, not something to escape into. Women like to fantasize about being desirable yes, but they also like to be powerful, and their definition of what they would consider to be sexy and powerful doesn’t mean battle-bikinis and thongs of power.
But hey, I’m a guy. It’s easy for me to sit here and proclaim what women find sexy, but I could be talking out of my ass. So why not take it to the source? I put out a completely unscientific poll on Facebook and Twitter about characters that women find sexy – video games, comics, anime, whatever. And the results? Well, let’s compare.
Up top we have the exaggerated figures that are supposedly sexy.
And here are the characters my female readers find sexy:
Notice a trend here? These are not the massive beefcakes alpha-males that are supposedly as equally objectified as Kasumi, Ayane or Ivy. These men have longer torsos with much leaner builds; they’re built like swimmers rather than weight-lifters. They’re not men who scream “unstoppable physical power”. They’re lithe and dextrous, not barrel-chested juggernauts with treestumps for limbs.
And the other critical factor: it’s not just their builds that make them sexy. Gambit, for example is attractive because of his personality and his situation; he’s tortured because he can’t physically touch the woman he loves. Nightcrawler is the laughing swashbuckler, full of wit and flirty charm. Jareth is dark and mysterious and just a little dangerous and oozes sexuality.
Yes, the men are exaggerated as much as the women. But it’s the intent and the message that make all of the difference.
The part I find most baffling about the claims that men suffer from the same objectification and sexualization as women is I can never, for the life of me, think of a popular product that has:
Plot essential scenes taking place inside a male strip bar, a strip bar that is introduced with loving panning shots over the performers bodies.
Sincere marketing campaigns for non-romantic productions focusing entirely on the sexual characteristics and flirtatious manner of the male lead.
A scandal where it turns out the creators accidentally released imagery of a male lead nude, imagery that never needed to be created for the production in the first place.
A video game rumor that there’s a key function to unlock “naked mode” so you can see the male protagonist running around naked
Part of the reason why some people seem to think that men are sexualized is, ironically, because male sexuality is so rarely put on display as enticement that it creates a mirage effect. People who assume it must be there start seeing it everywhere rather than realizing it’s just not there.
Bringing this back - but also expanding on it because if there’s one thing we’ve learned, it’s that people in denial will desperately cling to Raiden in Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty having a brief section where he’s stripped naked in the final leg of the game.
Of course, Raiden isn’t sexualized in this section, it’s not a random skin flash like the female characters in Metal Gear games are subjected to and he doesn’t breathe though his skin. It’s actually got a very specific storytelling purpose. Don’t believe me?
And of course, for those who keep insisting that various Snakes wearing skin tight outfits when they sometimes have their ass in the frame as part of the game mechanics - (MGSV spoilers in vid) his flaunting is strictly amateur.
in sixth grade my homeroom teacher caught this kid stephen saying, “that’s so gay.”
so he told the class that for the rest of the week, anytime you wanted to express something negatively, you could say, “that’s so stephen.”
and it started out as a joke, where even this stephen kid was going around using it, laughing at it, not really caring. it was funny, i guess.
but then one of his friends got a bad mark on a test and said, “that’s so stephen.”
we had a blacktop recess and everyone kept saying, “that’s so stephen.”
and when we got too loud doing groupwork and had to separate and work silently, everyone in the class kept muttering, “that’s so stephen.”
and the weirdest part was that even though it was just a word we were using, even though it had nothing to do with stephen, we all sort of blamed stephen.
and as everyone kept using “that’s so stephen,” all week, you could see stephen himself finding it less and less funny. we played a game called “pamplemousse” in french class and everyone got stephen out right away if they could. someone literally went and found one of stephen’s art projects when nobody else was around and ruined it so he had to start over.
and when my homeroom teacher found out about it, he sat everyone down and told us that it wasn’t okay to say “that’s so stephen” anymore. that the things we’d been blaming him for weren’t his fault and the things we’d been doing to him weren’t fair.
he told us that stephen couldn’t help it that he was stephen. he didn’t choose to be stephen. he was born stephen.
and that’s when it clicked.
we all felt pretty stupid, i think, for sort of falling for it, but i’ll be damned if i’ve ever had a teacher get a lesson across so utterly and completely as mr. bernard did.
Mens. I have actually officially forever given up on women's shoes. I either have men's feet, or duck feet. And they don't make shoes for ducks.
You should run. While it’s true that a litany of shitty things might happen along the way, you’ll feel better, be healthier, and maybe even be a hero . You don’t need the most expensive running shoes on the shelf, but you should buy good ones. So tell us, which running shoes do your feet prefer?
So I keep thinking about this sentence from Chernow’s biography of Alexander Hamilton:
Because the style of eighteenth-century letters could be quite florid, even between men, one must tread gingerly in approaching this matter [whether Hamilton and Laurens had a romantic/sexual relationship], especially since Laurens’s letters to Hamilton were warm but proper.
I feel like this point comes up so much when discussing whether such-and-such historical person was queer: we can’t tell because straight people in the past said stuff that sounds queer to us.
Okay I’m not going to argue with that. Yes, definitions of masculinity and sexuality are constructed and therefore shift over time. But somehow no one ever, ever mentions the other half of the problem, which seems SO MUCH MORE RELEVANT, which is that:
Queer people usually did not come right out and say unambiguously queer stuff in their letters, so they could have plausible deniability if someone read the letter.
Surely self-censorship by queer people is a much bigger obstacle to our definite knowledge of the nature of someone’s relationship than “the popularity of romantic friendship” or “shifting ideas of masculinity” or whatever!!!!
Many historians behave as if the fact that we can’t tell issimply some (almost charming) by-product of changing ideas of friendship. It’s not. Those letters where you’re like “Does this mean…? Surely they wouldn’t have said that if they didn’t…?” Queer people wrote letters like that ON PURPOSE.
And let’s not forget, Hamilton had no need and no reason to be unambiguous because he was writing to Laurens who, one assumes, knew whether or not they were sleeping together.
(And if Laurens’s letters back were less effusive, what does that prove but that he was more cautious? Sharing less of your business than Alexander Hamilton is not a high standard.)
Reading the mail, by the way, was one activity of George Washington’s spies.
yes. the ‘straight/cis until proven otherwise’ perspective actively does violence against LGBT people by limiting all but a very small few ‘legitimate’ LGBT figures to the modern age.
historians will create theories that the nature of friendship has fundamentally shifted in the past 150 years despite limited evidence outside homoromantic letters whilst ignoring the well-established fact that openly LGBT people faced violence and that that would’ve necessitated weariness of being too open about their relationships and yet still act as if it’s LGBT people that are the ones that are ‘choosing to see what we want to see.’
