ThePrettiestOne

lizlet:

I enjoy summer blockbusters. I really do. Big event movies, stunt spectaculars, franchises building upon past entries with in-jokes and new levels of awesome – I am easily pleased. I am so happy, to be just another laughing and awestruck face in a dark room.

But the older I get, the more tired I get by this moment that keeps happening, over and over again – the moment when it becomes clear that a summer blockbuster I’m watching will not be introducing any more female characters of substance. 20 minutes in, 45, an hour – the sensation never changes. The knowledge that we’re beyond the point where one might logically expect another girl to enter the scene and actually matter.

And then I sit there for the rest of the goddamn movie, thinking about how often this happens, how often I’ve sat in these dark rooms hoping to see more than one woman with real agency. How often I’ve sat there knowing that if the one female character we’ve been generously granted has anything resembling a real personality or backstory, that the (majority male) filmmakers consider themselves American fucking heroes, for treating the woman shown straddling a motorcycle from behind on the posters with the same level of consideration as her dozen male co-stars.

“She’s such a strong female character!” they might say, about their film featuring a ensemble cast of almost exclusively white men. They’re so fucking proud.

Yes, this is a not-so-subtweet directed at “Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation.” This is me wishing I could take any pleasure in Rebecca Ferguson’s admittedly movie-stealing performance, because if the “MI:” series has one consistent trend, it’s that it treats its female characters as disposable, while finding reason to bring back Ving Rhames time after time.

I like Ving Rhames a lot! I always have! (And if they didn’t bring him back there would also be no black people with any initiative in this movie, which, y'know, is its own thing.) I also like the decision to bring back Simon Pegg and Jeremy Renner, two other actors I enjoy watching act on screen.

But remember when the first “Mission: Impossible” featured a team of agents that included three women? THREE FUCKING WOMEN??? I mean, nothing good happened to any of them, but the idea that a team of secret agents could include more than one set of boobs wasn’t horrifying to the franchise… in 1996. It’s 2015. I’ve been watching these blockbusters for decades now… and I’m tired.

Yeah, like I said, I like these sorts of movies. And I enjoyed “Rogue Nation.” But even before the first of several times it made sure that the only lady of substance exposed her skivvies, I was kinda over it. I knew she was what we were gonna get, lady-wise. And worst of all, I knew we were supposed to consider her a victory.

It’s why I’m not super into the Mako Mori Test, to be honest, because as well-intentioned as it is, the fact remains that giving one female character a rich backstory doesn’t make it okay for every other character who matters to be male. IT JUST DOESN’T.

I guess it’s the part of my brain that assumes that summer blockbusters are interested in being daring, are interested in electrifying a female fanbase, are interested in moving beyond the status quo. The part of my brain that hopes that I might go see a new movie and feel like I’m actually seeing something new.

The worst part about getting older is the feeling that that feeling might not come anytime soon. The best part is believing that this shit might change, maybe. The latter… Well, I haven’t given up. But I’m getting tired a whole lot more easily.

“

i don’t imagine my princesses in the same way
others do, either kissing their husband and in
marital perfection or the cynical version where they are drunk
in the kitchen, living out their happily ever afters in
a haze of poor decisions, no,

i think cinderella becomes a fashion designer, i think
she stops smoking and takes back her name and
ends up making money and being a spokesperson
for abuse victims, i think right now if ella was alive
she’d be laughing over a pumpkin-spice latte and
her empire is the most body-inclusive in fashion

i think snow-white becomes an activist, i think she
studies genetics and i think she will allow
no person with a disability to go homeless, i think
whenever someone makes a joke about seven small men,
she whips around and asks them what exactly their problem is
because there is nothing wrong with
any of her friends

i think aurora is a sleep disorder doctor
and a psychologist, she uses hypnosis to help people
who can’t quite escape the thicket inside of their brains and
i think she’s working on developing a pill for people
with chronic insomnia even though everyone still teases her
about that one bout of narcolepsy and one day she admits
she actually was awake for most of it and just studying

i think ariel has shut down marine life poaching in
as many parts of her country as she can, i think that
she’s got teams working to clean up oil spills
and she’s building windmills in her backyard because
she’d rather have the “eyesore” than know someone is
drilling in her home, i think she has degrees in environmental
science and marine biology, i think she’s got a side project for scuba divers and oceanography and is devising a way for
mermaids to visit her land without giving up their tails

i think belle is a veterinarian and runs her practice
out of her father’s house
where his inventions have saved the lives of at least
ninety dogs and i think that she is a teacher in her free time
and has raised gaston’s eight kids to be nothing short
of polite and well-mannered and i think that she takes
frequent trips outside of her little quiet town but
always comes home again

i think jasmine is a feminist in every aspect, i believe
she works with shelters and soup kitchens and makes sure
nobody starves in her city ever again, i think she sets up
homes for homeless women, i think she marches in rallies
and has a school specifically for gifted girls that
were almost married off to strange men

see, i think when we cast these women as only a prize to be won
and that their life stops as soon as the credits roll, i think
when we joke about how everything went south
right after it all,
we’re telling girls, “you will regret that you ever fell in love
or believed in magic when you were small,” see
you can believe in happy endings, but believe too
in the princesses themselves,
believe that marriage isn’t the only goal
a girl can set for herself,

believe that if these girls fought to stay alive
when an evil queen was chasing them,
if they fought to give up their nature
for the chance of more adventure, if they fought
the sultan himself and society’s expectations:
something tells me that their happily ever after
isn’t resting on their laurels, something tells me
they’d seek just a little more,
something tells me that they’d keep fighting until
there is a happy ending for every single
little girl

believe in yourself, princess, and know that
even if you want a career and husband
and twelve happy children,
you are not deluding yourself of anything. it is
completely possible to actually have
everything

it is okay for you to want a job and a home
and a family and a kingdom. you are strong enough.
you would handle it.

please don’t let anyone
tell you
different.

”

- sit tall today, my love. your dreams are valid and you are always good enough. // r.i.d (via chippedcupofchai)

“

I kiss the pretty boy in black semi-sheer thigh highs, plant my hands on his hips, pull teasingly at his garter belt and I can hear my mother shaking her head across town. I can’t tell if she is disappointed or confused.

I lie awake next to the girl who smells like sweat and lemonade. I think about shoving my face into her hair but she falls asleep talking about her boyfriend. On the day my mother corners me in the kitchen to ask if I’m a “fucking lesbian”, I say no. I wonder if it counts as a lie when I still don’t have a word for all the different kinds of porn I like to watch.

When I come out, I am eight thousand miles away from home. I am sharing the bed of a substitute teacher. He likes to tie me up at night and kiss me in the morning. My mother says she’s not surprised but she doesn’t understand. When I use the B word, all I can think about is the first time bisexuality came up with her in conversation and she laughed.

THEY’RE JUST GREEDY.
IT’S LIKE THEY DON’T EVEN CARE WHO THEY’RE FUCKING.
THEY’D FUCK ANYTHING.
THEY MAY AS WELL FUCK A DOG.

My grandmother asks where they went wrong, if it’s because my father left and “you know, the other stuff.” She says, LOOK: IF YOU FALL IN LOVE, I’LL BE HAPPY FOR YOU BUT YOU CAN’T MARRY A WOMAN BECAUSE IT PERSONALLY OFFENDS ME. She calls me a dyke and says it’s a joke. She never asks me again if I’m seeing anybody.

I have a crush on a girl who makes her living writing good lines. I swoon every time she calls me baby, but I tell her I don’t know if I want to get into things. I second guess myself into a corner. What if it is just a phase? What if I change my mind? What if my mother’s right? Do I really need to put my family through that kind of thing?

I make arrangements to meet up with a man I’ve been in love with for the last few years, but I don’t tell anyone in my family because I don’t feel like explaining that it doesn’t mean I am straight.

My coworker says to me “why do lesbians use dildos? why don’t they just fuck men?” And I want to say “have you ever met a man??” but I feel like the joke is too gay and I am always trying to convince everyone I know that my sexuality is a revolving door that never stops spinning long enough to check IDs.

Yet somehow, I am always getting carded.

OKAY BUT HOW MANY WOMEN HAVE YOU BEEN WITH?
HOW MANY THREESOMES HAVE YOU HAD?
I MEAN ALL GIRLS ARE A LITTLE GAY.
YOU DON’T HAVE TO FLAUNT IT LIKE THAT.
YOU JUST DO THIS TO GET GUYS, DON’T YOU?

When the supreme court ruling comes through, I cry; but I don’t know if I can really celebrate the way that I want to because I don’t feel gay enough to talk about the struggle, but I’m not straight. My mother finds me in the morning to ask if I’ve heard the news.

She says, I SUPPORT YOU BECAUSE YOU’RE MY DAUGHTER BUT I DON’T AGREE WITH IT AND I DON’T THINK IT’S RIGHT.

I say, “then you don’t really support me”

and she doesn’t say anything.

”

- “The B Word” Trista Mateer
(via tristamateer)

skull-dude:

The amount of sass is unreal

Uncensored - Key & Peele - Menstruation Orientation:

luanneclatterbuck:

loveclaire:

I’ll just leave this right here.

A) So, are these guys single, or… *tucking my hair behind my ear*

B) I just sent this to my husband at work because my period made me.

Poor People: It's difficult to afford food.
Tired Argument #1: Just make everything from scratch
Person #1: I would love to, but I can't afford food in general, period, notwithstanding the fact that it's more expensive for me to make things from scratch, especially since I live no where near a source that sells the basic ingredients I would need to cook with.
Person #2: I'm disabled, I can't physically make everything from scratch, not only is it incredibly dangerous for me to attempt such a thing, but it's physically exhausting and emotionally draining.
Person #3: I work too many jobs, and am too busy I do not have enough time in the day to make everything from scratch by myself. My work hours barely allow for me to sleep.
Person #4: lmao, my EBT card doesn't cover basic ingredients, because the politicians in my state thought vegetables were too luxurious for me.
Tired Argument #2: You just aren't putting enough effort into it, make long trips, spend more time researching food prices, find the cheapest source. Do extreme couponing, like in that show. You just need to put your time and effort in.
Person's #1-4: Did you even read what we wrote?
Tired Argument #3: You just want to eat unhealthy
Person's #1-4: What the fuck are you talking about
And Repeat back to Tired Argument #1: Make everything from scratch.

Art by Brandon Odums. Image borrowed from nola.com; thanks to @KhaledBeydoun for the link.

(View original at http://thesocietypages.org/socimages)

My feminism isn’t. It’s about liberation from gender-based oppression.

“Equality” implies that I want the right to do all the crappy oppressive stuff men do, instead of changing the rules so no one’s allowed to do crappy oppressive stuff anymore.

“Equality” also doesn’t work because – equality with whom? In some ways, I as a white person have real privilege over a man who is black. Black women don’t, though. And my feminism wants black women to be free from oppression, too. It’s not enough for me to have equal privilege to a white man and them to have equal privilege to a black man, because they’re still oppressed.

So no, “equality” isn’t what I’m going for. I’m not content to leave oppressive systems in place as long as I get to be on top; I want to change the whole game.

(If anyone’s looking for labels, the feminism I support is intersectional feminism, and the kind of feminism where we leave the structure in place as long as some women get to be oppressive too is pretty much liberal feminism.)

cygnaut:

Mad Max: Fury Road + Onion Headlines

seananmcguire:

I re-blogged a picture of a little girl, dressed as Tiana, hugging the face actress who plays Tiana at one of the Disney Parks, and noted that everyone should have their princess.  And a few people have now contacted me basically going “no, only straight white people can have princesses if you stick with the classics.”

Um.

No.

I am a folklorist, and it’s time for some Fun With Folklore.

First off, very few Princesses/fairy tale heroines who are going to become Princesses because that’s what you do are actually defined by specific physical attributes.  You have Snow White, who yes, requires the “skin as white as snow” etc, but that’s to make her an alien beauty and justify the actions of her stepmother.  She belongs to the Aarne-Thompson tale type 709, which is commonly referred to as “Snow White,” but which contains a hell of a lot more, including “Bella Venezia”, “Myrsina”, “Nourie Hadig“ and ”Gold-Tree and Silver-Tree.”  All those links will take you to Wikipedia.  Click them.  Note that NOT ONE of those girls is defined by her appearance, beyond “incredibly beautiful.”  “Nourie Hadig” is Armenian in origin; you can bet that girl was not white as snow.  (Note that I do not actually care for the “Nourie Hadig” 709 variant, due to using a Roma girl as the main adversary, but that’s another story.)  Any story you want to tell is going to have variants where the heroines are never described!  You know why?

BECAUSE THE PEOPLE WHO WERE TELLING THESE STORIES UNDERSTOOD THAT IT WAS IMPORTANT FOR CHILDREN TO SEE THEMSELVES IN THE MIRROR OF THE TALE.

There are fairy tales about people with disabilities, ranging from the physical (missing limbs, missing eyes, missing tongues) to the emotional (girls who cannot smile, boys who cannot feel fear).  There are fairy tales that end in same-sex marriage.  There’s even an excellent fairy tale about gender identity, “The Princess Who Became A Prince,” in which our hero has always felt he was a boy, but tried to be a dutiful daughter, until a dragon stole a neighbor princess and he had to ride to rescue the girl in order to save the kingdom.  One misaimed curse later, and wham, our new-minted prince is finally outwardly as he had been all along on the inside.

THIS IS JUST AS OLD AND TRUE AND SCHOLASTIC AS CINDERELLA AND THE OTHERS.

The “big fairy tales” of today are the ones that someone seized on as marketable.  We have the power, as drivers of media, to say that we want more diversity.  We want Princesses of every race, creed, and religion, and we have the folklore and fairy tales to make them real.  We want our transgender Princess (although wow would the marketing be problematic).  Saying “the classics” are 100% about straight white people reduces the past to a place where only straight whiteness existed, and where no other children ever needed stories.  And that’s not what the past was.

Once upon a time has never stopped being right now.

confirmance:

this

Candorville by Darrin Bell for August 03, 2015

asylum-art-2:

Kelly Reemtsen’s works

(All images via skidmore contemporary art)

“Kelly Reemtsen’s paintings explore the paradoxical state of being female in post-feminist contemporary society”   (Lia Skidmore. April, 2011 read more at skidmore contemporary art) We at Mimi Berlin feel that these pictures are a bit old-fashioned. (in a good sense, we like them) We’ve learned that these women are wearing vintage dresses. That figures, it’s fashionable! via:mimiberlinblog

Hitchhiking Robot That Relied on Kindness of Strangers Destroyed on Cross-Country Trip In Philadelphia

earendils:

i already loved catherynne valente, but then she went on a twitter rant about the social construction behind poison being seen as a coward’s weapon and now i love her EVEN MORE

stare-me-down:

Just a kind reminder for cops right on the LAPD building.

Big surprise, most cats don’t like getting their claws trimmed. And if you’ve ever tried clipping your cat’s claws, you know it can be frustrating. To make the process easier, teach your cat to associate the process with something positive.

Read more...

Courtney shared this story from Super Opinionated.

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Courtney shared this story from Super Opinionated.

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There’s a new tool in the fight against Ebola in West Africa: rVSV-ZEBOV, a vaccine that has recently concluded a study phase, with researchers finding that it was incredibly effective against the deadly disease. While it’s still in trial stages, the drug appears to be a promising tool moving forward.

Read more...

This morning we were visited by an honest-to-god anti-Calvinism spambot.

retrogradeworks:

Seymour put his own ass in his mouth three times before he actually found the food that I was holding in front of his face this morning.

How is anyone afraid of snakes?

Adric (my sweet hugnoodle, who was fifteen feet long when he died) used to constrict the toilet after his baths.  He was just so excited about being clean that he had to constrict something, and well, the toilet was there…

supercargautier:

manifestingwomanist:

bushtitfeminist:

jadelyn:

enterprisingly:

This is the same man.

This works quite nicely at debunking the “beefcake guys in comics are objectified for women just like women in comics are for men!” imo.  On the left: a magazine tailored for a male audience, showing him in full beefcake-type mode with headlines about how you, too, can look like this.  On the right: a magazine tailored for a female audience, which has a headline about romance and shows him looking more or less like a normal dude.

Tell me again how comic book guys are designed for female sexual enjoyment, completely equivalent to anatomically-improbable spines and giant tits with their own individual centers of gravity, and totes aren’t just male power fantasies.

COMMENTARY

Women don’t treat men the way men treat women.

it’s also worth noting that despite all the geeks complaining about women’s impossible standards, the fantasy on the right sets a really really easy low bar to meet:

“cool clean friendly non-aggressive man who will cook a food for u”

yep what an unfair standard to be subjected to

sorayachemaly:

All over the world, women, for a variety of reasons, experience much higher rates of pain than men. More than 100 million Americans report living with chronic pain, and the vast majority are women. Yet, doctors discount women’s reports of pain. Both male and female doctors exhibit the same biases in treatment. 

1. People have a difficult time recognizing women’s pain. Not in an abstract sense, but in an actual, practical, “Does that expression on her face mean she is in pain?” way. People are much better at reflexively decoding pain when a man’s face reflects it than when a woman’s does.  This is also true when a white person is experiencing pain versus a black person. 

2. Gender bias and stereotypes infuse the way doctors treat women’s pain. A 2014 survey of more than 2,000 women, conducted by the National Pain Report and For Grace, a non-profit devoted to finding solutions for women in pain, found that three quarters of the women surveyed were told at least once by a doctor that nothing could be done for them and that they would just have to live with chronic physical hurt.

• 57% report being told by a doctor, “I don’t know what’s wrong with you.”
• 51% report having doctor’s say, “You look good, so you must be feeling better.”
• 45% reported that they were told, “The pain is all in your head.”

My personal favorites? “You are too pretty to have so many problems,” and “You can’t be too sick because you have makeup on and you are not in your sweatpants.”

3. Men and women experience different kinds of pain differently, but women report feeling more intense pain. However, when men report pain, they are treated more seriously. Doctors, for example, are more likely to prescribe painkillers for men, but sedatives for women. One study showed that men are also more likely to be sent to intensive care units. In an extensive essay on pain last year, Judy Foreman shared research showing that women are far less likely to get hip or knee replacements and that doctors are disinclined to think that women have heart problems, even when they have symptoms. Women are more likely to seek treatment for chronic pain, but are also more likely to be inadequately treated by health care providers.

4. Despite the fact that men have higher rates of recognized trauma leading to post traumatic stress disorder, women are more than twice as likely to have anxiety disorders and to report fatigue than men. Women’s higher rates of symptoms for PTSD has puzzled doctors, who frequently write the effects off to women’s nerves or over-emotionality. However, researchers have documented the link between concerns about physical safety and psychological harm. Consider, for example, that before puberty, boys and girls experience depression and anxiety at similar rates, but, upon puberty, when street harassment, awareness of physical vulnerability and rape begin, girls’ are up to six times as likely to suffer from anxiety as teenage boys.

Researchers have now concluded that women are more likely to have a whole host of physical problems due to the accumulated effects of hyper-vigilance, sexual objectification, and harassment. Recently, scientists at the University of Mary Washington’s Psychology Department showed the effects of sexual harassment on women, effects that are even stronger in women who have been sexually abused. They concluded that women are experiencing “insidious trauma,” something most doctors are oblivious about.

Lastly, medical research continues to fail to take sex-specific issues into account, mistakenly assuming that male, mostly white male, test subjects sufficiently represent all of humanity. This discriminatory skewing of research, in favor of male physiology, has considerable impact on women’s health, including pain and pain mitigation.

For entire article read Role/Reboot. 

thesociologicalcinema:

To the young woman who approached me recently to let me know that pointing out racism was making racism worse, and to the middle-aged man who informed me that men don’t actually make more than women considering men work more hours, you should know that I figure out answers for those kinds of questions for a living, and your opinions about the harm of pointing out racism and the gender wage gap are about as interesting to me as your belly button lint. Tell you what, go tell a rocket scientist about a thought you once pooped out regarding the aerodynamics of her rocket. If she changes her designs based on what you tell her, we’ll carefully consider whatever future opinions you’d like to share about the social world. 

Sincerely,

A sociologist 

micdotcom:

Watch: Incredible video shows why girls avoid science and tech — and how we can change it