ThePrettiestOne

“‎People wonder why women don’t “fight back,” but they don’t wonder about it when women back down in arguments, are interrupted, purposefully lower and modulate their voices to express less emotion, […] They don’t wonder about all those daily social interactions in which women are quieter, ignored, or invisible, because those social interactions seem normal.”

-

Harriet J

(via ceasesilence)

aspiringdoctors:

Thank you!

noquitter:

this won’t get 1% of the women’s version of this post. 

the world we live in, and people in general don’t care about men. we are pretty much robots who aren’t allowed to show emotion. we’re taught from a young age that boys don’t cry. 

fact is women are sexualised, men are idealised. because men can’t be raped because they’re big and strong right? right? yea, pretty much the idiots view of living. 

Americans have become increasingly critical of public policy as a means of addressing social problems.  Many believe that these policies don’t work; the reality is that public policies are often subverted in ways that make them ineffective or even counterproductive.

Take taxes and inequality.  As Danny Vinik, writing in the New Republic explains:

The vast majority of Americans—both liberals and conservatives—believe that state and local taxes should also be progressive. That’s the finding of a new report released by WalletHub Monday. The researchers surveyed 1,050 Americans on what they thought the combined rate of state and local taxes should be at various income levels. Not surprisingly, liberals want the rate structure to be a bit more progressive than conservatives do, but their responses [as the following chart shows] were relatively similar:

However the reality is quite different.  State and local taxes are actually quite regressive.  The Institute for Taxation and Economic Policy studied the “fairness of state and local tax systems by measuring the state and local taxes that will be paid in 2015 by different [non-elderly] income groups as a share of their incomes.”  They did this state by state and, as presented below, on an overall basis.  As we can see, the lower the income, the greater the state and local tax burden.

Here are some of the report’s key findings:

• Virtually every state tax system is fundamentally unfair, taking a much greater share of income from low- and middle-income families than from wealthy families. The absence of a graduated personal income tax and overreliance on consumption taxes exacerbate this problem.
• In the 10 states with the most regressive tax structures (the Terrible 10) the bottom 20 percent pay up to seven times as much of their income in taxes as their wealthy counterparts. Washington State is the most regressive, followed by Florida, Texas, South Dakota, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Arizona, Kansas, and Indiana.
• Heavy reliance on sales and excise taxes are characteristics of the most regressive state tax systems. Six of the 10 most regressive states derive roughly half to two-thirds of their tax revenue from sales and excise taxes, compared to a national average of roughly one-third . Five of these states do not levy a broad-based personal income tax (four do not have any taxes on personal income and one state only applies its personal income tax to interest and dividends) while four have a personal income tax rate structure that is flat or virtually flat.
• States commended as “low tax” are often high tax states for low-and middle-income families. The 10 states with the highest taxes on the poor are Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Texas, and Washington. Seven of these are also among the “terrible ten” because they are not only high tax for the poorest, but low tax for the wealthiest.

In short, we know how to construct tax policies that can lessen inequality, but we’re not using state and local taxes to do it.

Cross-posted at Reports from the Economic Front and Pacific Standard.

Martin Hart-Landsberg is a professor of economics at Lewis and Clark College. You can follow him at Reports from the Economic Front.

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

roisinlikesbooks:

micdotcom:

222 years later, Benjamin Franklin’s message about vaccination matters more than ever

This is as close as you’re gonna get to a dead ancestor appearing in the sky and telling you to get your shit together

I mean, I guess? But not really. Here’s a few things about when people say stuff like “cis het guys are fucking disgusting.”

1. When it comes to harmful comments, being told that cis heterosexual guys are shitheads is the bottom of the barrel.

Do you know why it doesn’t really bother me when I hear shitty things about cishet guys? Because on the wide fucking spectrum of gender and sexuality, we have it easiest by a fucking MILE.

We have the most privilege and the least resistance in a LOT of things. We never have to deal with our actions being called into questions and we’re allowed a stupid and ridiculous amount of wiggle rooms with ideas like “boys will be boys.” 

We can do things women would get crucified for doing. Sleeping around doesn’t make us “slutty,” it makes us “studs.” Spending a lot of time focusing on our look and style doesn’t make us “shallow,” it makes us “classy,” even though neckbeard fedora MRA dickheads have ruined that word.

So if a woman wants to call cishet guys gross, it’s kinda like calling a white dude a cracker. You can’t be racist or sexist to the people who are in power, because it’s an institutionalized thing.

2. Here’s the thing. Straight guys are kiiiinda the worst.

I’m sorry, but have you SEEN other dudes? Jesus christ, we’re fucking awful.

It’s gotten so bad that literally like 80 percent of the time I’ve begun to talk to a new girl through the internet, dating sites, tumblr or texting, they seriously make a point to say something like “holy fuck I’m so glad you can have an actual conversation.”

When I see screenshots of dudes texting it’s so fucking terrible. This “what would u do if I was there right now lol” bullshit is so disgusting, charmless, lame and fucking pathetic, it reminds me of me when I was like 18 and I fucking hate 18 year old me. He’s a sexist and a dipshit.

And that’s not even the worst of it. This isn’t even touching the sort of hatred and hostility that a LOT of men have when it comes to rejection. I’ve SEEN conversations women have had with men where, once the woman rejects the guy as politely as she can, he immediately turns on her.

As soon as he has to fathom the idea of a woman not wanting him to shove his terrible dick inside her for 20 seconds, he gets fucking furious. He insults her weight, appearance, anything he knows she might be insecure about. It’s horrible and disgusting.

This is just a SMALL part of the shitty things that cishet guys are capable of because we’re taught to think of ourselves as kings who, if the women are lucky enough, will bestow our kingly dick and balls upon them.

This isn’t even TOUCHING the dangerous ideas of the friend zone or how dehumanizing and manipulative it is, but I’ve talked about that before, mostly because I used to be one of those white knight dudes and I feel horrible about it to this day.

3. The most terrible thing to men? IS MEN.

Somehow, MRAs got this idea that feminism is about killing men and taking their place or something. That just goes to show why feminism has to exist, because somehow men’s rights activists took a movement about women and made it about them.

But here’s the thing. The terrible shit that happens to men? We pretty much do all of it to ourselves.

First of all, there’s the idea of toxic masculinity. We raise boys to believe that they have to be tough. “boys don’t cry,” we try and tell them. And because of this, they feel pressured to be tough and to feel nothing, so they’re emotionally stunted and filled with anger.

Second of all, we throw out dangerous ideas that grant them more freedom to be shitty to each other. “boys will be boys,” we say as we write off bad and violent behavior. 

Let’s look at that mixture. We’re telling young boys that they aren’t free to express their emotions in the natural way, so they end up bottling up everything. Then, we grant them the freedom to be physically and verbally aggressive to other people.

That’s a dangerous mixture.

Even beyond that, MRAs are so quick to shout “things are bad for men too” at so many things, then when presented with those ideas, they write them off as invalid.

Whenever we talk about the statistics of women who are raped and how it’s a problem and a crime of aggression, men are so quick to say things like “Men get raped too!”

But if you look on Facebook, as soon as someone posts an article about some 35 year old teacher who raped a 17 year old boy, it’ll literally only be the men who say things like “heh, that boy is so lucky” or “wish I had a teacher like that!”

do you know what it means to claim that men are also raped, and then immediately joke about how lucky it is for a man to be raped by a woman?

It means that you don’t give a fuck about other men. It means that you don’t give a fuck about other human beings. It means that literally the only reason that you said it, without caring about the men who are hurt in those crimes, is because you want to take attention away from the VASTLY higher number of women who are raped and make it about you.

That is why women need feminism.

And that is why I don’t mind seeing jokes about straight(ish) dudes like me on tumblr.

nitatyndall:

mercurialgurl:

kuvira-is-my-bae:

wonkistan:

Reader Chris passes along an article about differences in American Sign Language usage between white and African-American signers. Researchers investigating what they call Black ASL found significant variations in signs, signing space, and facial cues. They explain:

Black ASL is not just a slang form of signing. Instead, think of the two signing systems as comparable to American and British English: similar but with differences that follow regular patterns and a lot of variation in individual usage.

They hypothesize that these differences began in segregated learning environments, and continue to evolve in Black social spaces. The whole article is worth a read.

Thanks, Chris, and remember — you can submit Wonk-worthy links through our ask or via email!

ETA, 9/24/12: Many of you have brought up the use of the word “mainstream” in this infographic. Better choices definitely exist, since this word rings of othering. We appreciate your nuanced and attentive readership!

This is really cool!

this is awesome i was not aware of this

If you want more information, Dr. Joseph Hill has it: He’s Deaf himself and has a PhD in Linguistics from Gallaudet University, too, and created a really informative video about the history and structure of Black ASL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7ooYqdEdUY

(turn on Closed Captionings to understand the signs) 

“

A Times analysis of preschool immunization showed that private child-care centers like the YWCA in Santa Monica had lower measles vaccination rates than public facilities. Mirroring the situation at kindergartens, the analysis found that preschools in affluent areas like the Westside, southern Orange County and the South Bay tended to have lower vaccination rates.

About 87% of toddlers and preschoolers had all required vaccines in privately run child-care facilities; public centers had a 90% rate. At federally funded Head Start programs, which serve low-income children, the rate was 96%.

”

- This has been mentioned before, but it bears repeating: The reemergence of whooping cough and measles is the work of wealthy white people. Low-income people and people of color have absolute reasons to distrust medical mandates for how often their bodies have been used without regard for health or safety, but the anti-vaxxer movement is all Jenny McCarthy and conspicuous consumption granola types. (via riverwaltz)

vaspider:

genderfuckedover:

thewomanfromitaly:

i-am-river:

So, i read this awful article using bathroom “scare tactics,” which was claiming that trans women are potential rapists. “Men” who dress as women to gain access to women only spaces and force them self on women. This really upset me and i had a bit of a Twitter rant. They were read by others and i was urged to post them in other media also, so i am posting them here. (Edited together in easy reading format from top to bottom.)

This is the link in the first tweet about how there are no cases of a trans woman attacking a cis woman in public restrooms: Link 1.

This is the link in the second tweet about the cases where trans people are assaulted in the bathroom by cis people: Link 2.

if you’re cis and you follow me i’m gonna need you to reblog this

don’t care if you’re cis or trans, this is important.

Be an ally. Police the bathroom police.

incidentalcomics:

Word Problems

wreckingbally:

Jeffrey Cranor on the Anti-Vaccines Nonsense

all of buffy → badass buffy
   ↪ "I’m going to kill them all. That ought to distract them."

clarawebbwillcutoffyourhead:

mx-siren:

just read a headline about how “Rihanna’s outfit leaves little to the imagination.” that phrase…just…do people actually think respectable women should dress for MAXIMUM MALE IMAGINATION STIMULATION? 

You know it!

And then think about how many men you work w or go to school w or whatever, think about how many of them are just casually imagining you naked instead of doing their work and how then that becomes YOUR problem that some more men gotta fix a dress codes.

Rape culture wut

Patriarchy WUT

-teesa-:

2.2.15

In most of the country, you can still fire someone for being obese. And then when you’re unemployed, you’re likely to gain more weight, making it harder to find a job.

awkward-aeries:

awkward-aeries:

A makeup tutorial for meninists, because men deserve the right to look good.

Reblogs are always appreciated!

Oh my god I love her so much.

Photo: tavisalks.com/Remaking America

In this country millions of children are going hungry.  There are as many reasons as there are hungry children, but not a single one of them is the fault of the child.

This year's count puts the homeless at nearly 600,000. Many of them are our veterans, come home from wars with wounds that won't heal.  Nearly a third of them live on the streets.  Some cities work diligently to keep them off the streets, not by sheltering them but by making their attempts to sleep outdoors more difficult.

Our public schools are barely holding together, as funding, along with creativity and our ability to see our children as our future, declines.  Their future is in jeopardy, and there are some who see that as a good thing.

Men and women in their middle years are now taking jobs normally held by teens or retirees.  $20 and $30 an hour jobs are long gone for the masses.  A $10-an-hour job is now classified as a goal to reach instead of a hurdle to jump over.

People who were promised adequate retirements are finding, 30 years after the pact, that nothing was written in blood.  The money they worked for and counted on has been stolen away and they have no choice but to accept it.  As criminal as it seems, it's just the way it is when times are bad and we all (well, almost all)  have to tighten our belts.

Our need to keep health care obscenely profitable is responsible for shortening lives and causing needless pain.  We seem not to be able to make the connection when ad campaigns by insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, and hospital chains bombard our airwaves.  Someone is paying for those ads.  We try not to think about who that might be.

Our roads and bridges and buildings are crumbling and we're supposed to believe there is no money to fix them.  We wait for the inevitable disaster that will open the vault to the funds hiding there all along.  Large numbers of people will have to die as a sacrifice before more can live.

Private interests are carpet-bombing the land of the free and the home of the brave.  We say we don't know how to stop them, apparently not even noticing that we've made a habit of nurturing and promoting politicians who make no secret of their allegiance to them.

But I'm not telling you anything you didn't already know.

So why aren't we talking about these things all day every day until something gets done about them? Why aren't we seeing periodic updates on these insults to the human spirit on the news?

A hungry child wonders where he'll be sleeping tonight.

A good person working hard to build a safe future suddenly finds herself jobless with no comparable employment in sight.

A man nearing retirement age finds that the equity in his house is worth a third of what it was 10 years ago, and his retirement package is worth even less.

A person gets sick.  The illness becomes chronic.  Work is out of the question, but the costs to stay stable have risen and are now beyond reach.  Next step: bankruptcy.

Tent cities are springing up, then being torn down.

And so on.

These stories get published and most of us react the way the writer intended, but the big news takes over and the stories, sad as they are, get lost.

Big news like (you knew this was coming) sports world scandals, Sarah Palin doing anything, God's personal messages to certain GOP leaders, the hurtful words one public person used against someone else, and the interminable, advertiser-driven, celebrity happenings.

When was the last time the news media was so captivated by a story about any of the abuses I've listed, they made it "Breaking News" and stayed on it for days on end, without regard for regular programming?

When was the last time the public went on a rampage against those abuses, protesting in numbers so powerful they couldn't be ignored until change finally came?

Never.  It has never happened.  Which is why we're still where we are, and the perpetrators are still where they are--growing stronger in a place where they need not be afraid.

There are powerful factions out there working to build our country to their liking.  They welcome the distractions, and often manufacture them in order to divert our attention away from their efforts to take us down.  After decades of practice, the demagogues have fear-mongering down to an art form.  It's no accident, for example, that Ted Cruz looks, acts and sounds like Sen. Joseph McCarthy.  Or that Rand Paul confuses libertarianism with liberty.  Or that a vengeful, gun-toting God has suddenly become the Right's co-pilot.

They understand the media better than we do.  They know that religion, bigotry, and misogyny push the right buttons and keep the noise going.  They know enough of us are easily distracted and will believe anything but the truth.  Those people are their ace in the hole.  They couldn't win without them.

Our mission, if we choose to accept it, is to bring the dialogue back to the bigger issues and keep them front and center.  Our story is the story of the masses.   We owe it to us all to get it right.

(Cross-posted at dagblog, Daily Kos, and Freak Out Nation.  Featured on Crooks & Liars MBRU)

agelfeygelach:

roachpatrol:

i enjoy that every single human’s reaction to penguin is unrestrained delight

And penguins lack large terrestrial predators, so their reaction to humans tends to be, “HELLO STRANGE GIANT PENGUINS, WHAT ARE YOU DOING? DO YOU HAVE ANY FISH?”

micdotcom:

#QuestionsForMen shows guys what sexism really feels like 

On Monday, Elite Daily’s Clementine Ford tweeted out out an innocuous, albeit pointed, question about sexism. She asked men if they received blowback for vocally expressing their thoughts on social media. The question was based off her own experience that has little to do with the merits of her work but everything to do with her gender.

The hashtag then took on a life of its own

comedycentral:

Jon Stewart responds to Mike Huckabee’s position on gay marriage. Click here to watch.

skyliting:

medievalpoc:

doublehamburgerjack:

frantzfandom:

deux-zero-deux:

wtf-fun-factss:

Traces of coca and nicotine found in Egyptian mummies - WTF fun facts

well DUH. a lot of historians are still trying to process the fact that ancient egyptians knew how to build boats, which is ridiculous. why would they not be seafarers and explorers?

this is not new or surprising information at all. it pretty much day one of any african-american studies course.

the egyptians knew that if they put their boats in front of the summer storm winds it’d blow them right across the sea to the Americas and they shared that with the greeks.

It’s really hard for people to understand that everyone had boats, exploration, and trade interactions without the same level of murder, colonization, and violence that the Europeans did. It’s really hard for people to get that.

An 11,000 year old Iroqious boat.

A whole book about Ancient Egyptian Maritime technology and culture.

Scientists “shocked” to discover that humanity casually traveled the seas over 100,000 years ago.

The Sea-Craft of Prehistory (book; Eurocentric as heck)

Humans traveling long distances by sea and deep=sea fishing for c. 42,000 years

The Dufuna Canoe, Africa’s oldest surviving boat, is 8,000 years old (Nigeria)

A fleet of 5,000-year-old boats in Abydos, Egypt

7,000-year-old seaworthy vessels in Kuwait

7,500-year-old boat found in China’s Zhejiang Province.

Scientific Evidence for Pre-Columbian Transoceanic Voyages (273 pages-for the hardcore only!):

The only plausible explanation for these findings is that a considerable number of transoceanic voyages in both directions across both major oceans were completed between the 7th millennium BC and the European age of discovery. Our growing knowledge of early maritime technology and its accomplishments gives us confidence that vessels and nautical skills capable of these long-distance travels were developed by the times indicated. These voyages put a new complexion on the extensive Old World/New World cultural parallels that have long been controversial.

White people: Egyptians had boats?????

People of Color:  It’s not like they lived IMMEDIATELY BESIDE A RIVER OR ANYTHING, fuck.

pinstripebindi:

mayakern:

just a little body talk comic.

i have so many more opinions about this topic than can fit in a tiny, nine panel comic.