There’s always a lingering question that I ask myself, which is why do I, a cis bisexual woman, enjoy romance between two men so much?  

There are easy answers, like that it’s just fetishizing.  And like, I find men attractive, yes.  But I also find women attractive.  I don’t have a problem with enjoying het romance, assuming I can find good ones.  I enjoy stories with female characters I can relate to.

But there’s something much deeper at play, IMO.  A friend of mine who is a gender studies professor was the first person to point this out to me, but a lot of women enjoy m/m romance and gay porn because of the lack of women.  It removes a source of pressure and sexism.  Without any women present, you don’t have to constantly evaluate the sexism of their portrayal, or be reminded of negative experiences in your own life.  It allows women to experience romance and especially sexuality without all the baggage that comes with it in our patriarchal society.

This was recently illustrated to me rather dramatically.  I read a recommendation for a het romance.  And it sounded cute, and came highly recommended.  The tropes at play were fun.  Until I read a snippet and realized this was a romance between a woman and her boss.  I had a visceral negative reaction.  

Instantly I’m thinking of sexual harassment stories I’ve read and heard from other women. I’m thinking of how uncomfortable it would be to have your boss develop feelings for you.  How icky the power dynamics would be, etc.  

And then I realized…this wouldn’t bother me if it were two men.  Now, there’s no logical reason for that.  Sexual harassment is just as wrong when its object is a man.  But I know I’ve read fics with a similar premise and never thought about it.  Because when it’s two men I can accept this is just a light romance, a fantasy, meant to be fun and sexy and not to represent the real world.

But I can’t when it’s a het relationship.  There’s too much baggage there.  Too much societal history of abuse.  I can’t relax enough with the premise to enjoy that story.  

Now some people can.  And that’s fine.  And some people are never going to be okay with power imbalances like that regardless of gender.  That’s also fine.  I don’t think having either reaction makes one morally superior.  It’s okay to just enjoy light entertainment for what it is without going into deep analysis.

But it’s much more difficult for me, and I think for many women, to relax and enjoy romantic and sexual stories when they involve female characters.  We’ve been burned too many times by shitty depictions, by shallow role models, by abuse portrayed as romantic.  We have developed a stress response, a trauma response to heterosexual romance.  We are hyper-reactive to a wide variety of triggers in regards to it.   But removing women from the equation makes stories safer for us.  And maybe it shouldn’t?  In an ideal world?  But for many of us, that’s the truth.

So this post blew up in the last 24 hours, for whatever reason, and I was looking through people’s responses, as you do.  I’m quite moved that so many found it relatable.

But I wanted to highlight one set of tags (via @reallifepotato​ )

Because I AM comfortable with my sexuality and fairly comfortable with my body, but still, this resonates so hard as someone who has always been overweight.  The amount that our society teaches women to constantly compare ourselves, almost always negatively with every other woman out there, can utterly ruin our enjoyment of this kind of thing.  Like how many times have you tried to watch a mainstream romantic comedy where some utterly gorgeous actress is bemoaning that she can’t get a date, or WORSE is made out to be less than attractive.  And you look at her and go…but she’s fucking perfect?  And you just want to puke.  

But with m/m romance you can put yourself in the place of either character and…not compare yourself.  You can enjoy a character being attractive without feeling bad about yourself, which is REALLY HARD to do for any woman in our fucked up culture.  

oh my god someone put it into words!!!!!

there are soooo many nuances and reasons that many of us aren’t even conscious of which makes me doubly angry when it’s dismissed as fetishizing.  fuck off and let me read my love stories pls.

nail on the goddamn head there

Women should NOT be forced to feed their babies in a bathroom, all because we live in a misogynistic, porn-warped society that’s been brainwashed to believe that female breasts used for anything other than male pleasure is “indecent”. Support public breast feeding and end the porn culture.

Forever reblog

No. I’m eating. I don’t wanna see you hang out your goddamn tits while I have food. My kids don’t wanna see it. It’s not some misogynistic ideal, it’s fucking public indecency. Can I take my cock out under the table and feed my wife/girlfriend? No? Fuck you

i genuinely cannot believe that you just compared a blowjob to breastfeeding oh my fucking god 

getting a blowjob is a sexual thing and it also does not ‘feed’ anyone whereas breastfeeding is literally not even a sexual thing a baby is having food that they need to live like it’s nowhere near on the same level as getting a blowjob omg

if you are uncomfortable seeing a woman breastfeeding then that is your problem because you have oversexualised breasts so much that you can’t even stand seeing them being used for their actual purpose and also you’re an idiot

go eat your dinner in a public bathroom, you trash bag

End skeevy dudes who compare whipping out their dick in public to breast feeding 2k15

DO YOU FEED YOUR CHILDREN SEMEN? SHOVE A TRASH CAN UP YOUR ASS

Pediatric anthropology student, here.

1.) Breasts as sexual fetishes is a (largely Western) cultural construction. Yes, it’s a fetish – anything you are sexually attracted to that is not the genitals of an adult is a fetish, or paraphilia. My professors have met non-Westerners who think our men are “like babies” because they are attracted to breasts.

Breasts ≠ genitals. Scientifically, they are considered secondary sexual characteristics – same category as facial hair. They can be sexual in a sexual context, just as necks and feet can be. But their primary purpose is reproductive.

2.) Breastmilk is not a “bodily fluid.” It is FOOD.

It is not categorized by the CDC as a biohazard, and so no you don’t need to freak out if your coworker wants to store her milk right next to your Lunchables.

MOREOVER,

Breastmilk is not just protein and vitamins. It is a living, dynamic substance that BUILDS HUMANS.

It has hundreds of ingredients (<— actually that list needs to be updated because they’ve discovered more already). There is a lab at the University of Washington St. Louis, where they have written all of the ingredients of human milk on the wall – They have run out of room on that wall. Among those ingredients:

These ingredients change hour-to-hour according to the baby’s needs. It will even add more water on hot/dry days. Fuck, breastmilk kills cancer in a petri dish. Breastmilk. is. not. a. bodily. fluid. It. is. liquid. gold. 3.) When you tell a woman to go to the bathroom to breastfeed, you are perpetuating the notion that it is dirty and shameful and needs to be hidden away. This idea is the biggest barrier to achieving breastfeeding goals in the United States. Because women feel ashamed, they often stay isolated at home when they should be spending time out and about with friends and family and having, like, a life. This isolation can contribute to postpartum depression. From the Surgeon General’s Call to Action to Support Breastfeeding: Women may find themselves excluded from social interactions when they are breastfeeding because others are reluctant to be in the same room while they breastfeed. For many women, the feeling of embarrassment restricts their activities and is cited as a reason for choosing to feed supplementary formula or to give up breastfeeding altogether. And since we have this culture of shame and privacy surrounding breastfeeding, young girls and women don’t see it enough to learn what is normal/not and how to do it, so they often give up when they run into problems because they don’t realize there’s an easy fix. Moreover, an infant needs to be integrated into society in order to develop properly. He/she needs to see faces and hear voices. Isolating them – or throwing a blanket over their head – takes this important component of their development away. It also often annoys them because they are understimulated. 4.) YOU NEED TO SEE IT. That’s right, YOU. Even if you are a dude. Maybe you aren’t a parent, but you probably have loved ones who are. Or you might become one yourself someday. And if you are American chances are you have no idea how breastfeeding actually works, because you never fucking see it. It’s messy and complicated, and hard. It used to be a part of everyday life, because there weren’t any alternatives – So we learned how to do it by being around it all the time, NBD. The whole sexualization/modesty thing surrounding breasts wasn’t a thing until like the mid-20th century. Check out this 1871 drawing of a woman breastfeeding IN FUCKING CHURCH:

She’s covered head to toe, in accordance with modesty standards of the time – except for her breast, about which the people around her give zero fucks. More from the Surgeon General: In American culture, breasts have often been regarded primarily as sexual objects, while their nurturing function has been downplayed. Although focusing on the sexuality of female breasts is common in the mass media, visual images of breastfeeding are rare, and a mother may never have seen a woman breastfeeding. Mothers need to see it. Future mothers need to see it. Future fathers need to see it. Family members need to see it. Everybody needs to see it. SO THEY FUCKING GET USED TO IT. So, no, I’m not gonna go to the bathroom to feed my kid. If you don’t want to see it, then DON’T. FUCKING. LOOK.

T

Mood. -V

This reminds me of a party I went to last year. I was standing with some friends, chatting, and someone said something that indirectly implied that sexism exists. Some trivial recounting of the basic facts of daily life for most women. Something so mild, so uncontroversial, so mundane that I don’t even remember what it was. 

Suddenly, this man standing on the outskirts of our conversational circle piped up with “actually, I think men are more discriminated against than women these days.”

 All conversation died.

I turned to look at him and he had this smug, insufferable grin on his face, relishing this moment, expecting us to waste our time and energy refuting this ridiculous thing he had just said.

The Devil’s Advocate was among us.

And, in my mind, I saw the next 15+ minutes playing out. The parade of facts and statistics in a vain attempt to defend ourselves, our gender, and to prove that misogyny is real. The glib, snide denials from some shithead who is getting off on our pain and frustration. The Gish Gallop of bullshit that would take a whole evening to properly dismantle. It was depressing and overwhelming. I hated it. I had to kill it before it began.

So I looked him dead in the eye and I said “OK,“ shrugged, and just walked away. 

Nothing I have ever said to another human being has ever been so crushing. As I walked away, I watched the smug grin vanish and confusion and anxiety set in. The rest of the group turned their backs to him and carried on as if he had never spoken - as if he was invisible. He was still staring at me when I walked over to another friend and told her what he had said. I pointed him out for her and made direct eye contact with him while we both laughed.

tl;dr: Don’t feed the troll. Let it perish, cold and hungry, in the wasteland of your indifference. It is weak and you are strong. Live your best life.

Legendary

DIVORCE HIM

https://metro.co.uk/2017/11/01/male-incompetence-is-a-subtle-form-of-misogyny-7046248/

Put these garbage men in the garbage where they belong.

I went and checked the original source and it’s worse. While most of the comments get the problem (the lying, not the eggs) some of them just cannot see that this shit is actually a big honking warning sign for bigger shit. A loving person is not capable of doing this. 

He literally puts his mere convenience over her actual well being. This guy thought up and executed a plan where she has to do *all* the work (because of course it wasn’t just this one specific thing) while he watches her tire herself out from the sidelines. Imagine this going on for *years*. …now imagine this with kids. You think this guy cares if she gets off during sex? Would he take care of her if she were to get sick? Would he ever lift a finger if he could get away not doing it? 

She can’t trust a word he says and he doesn’t give a shit about her needs. It’s not about the *eggs*.

Sorry to reblog from you, stranger, but this commentary is all very good. I especially appreciate the emphasized statement that “a loving person is not capable of doing this.” That line is going to rattle around my brain for ages — the words feel good in my mouth. How you’ve said it is just so right.

I want to add some of OP’s further comments on the thread she made:

“To be fair, I have pretty high standards for cleanliness and his idea of clean vastly differs from mine and honestly, that’s okay! But now I’m starting to seriously wonder if he sabotaged cleaning, too, just to get me to do it. Dishes, for instance. He will wash half and leave a nasty sink full of the rest, claiming he’ll do them later. This drives me nuts, so I just do them. Often he will leave crusted on shit on then, too, so okay, I’ll just do them, right? Now because of the egg business, I’m seeing it as malicious.”

→ The husband is lazy. He seemingly commits to housework, only to bail partway through, and doesn’t even put in the effort required to do the job right in the first place.

“Yes, he sucks at dishes and laundry to the point he is banned from doing them. He will leave clothes in the washer overnight and doesnt separate anything to the point I’ve had many white clothes ruined. My favorite white brassiere is now pink due to his bullshit.”

→ The husband is inconsiderate of his wife’s property, even that which is well-loved. Could his repeated failure to learn how to do this task have been a ruse? Did he anticipate his banishment from laundry duty? OP now has to genuinely wonder about this.

“I’m starting to think he does things wrong on purpose now just to get me to do it. Another example! My car. For a while my driver side door wouldn’t open from the outside, so I had to crawl through the passenger side. He ordered a handle and kept putting it off for WEEKS. Finally, he says his hands are too big to do it, so I had to do it.”

→ The husband makes excuses for himself that cast him as an unwitting victim to fate, with the implication that he would totally do [action], if only he could. He distances himself from any possibility of blame.

Obviously, anonymous forum posts are taken with a grain of salt — we, as readers, will never know for sure if OP is real. That’s not a concern for me, though. Like I don’t care. The fact is that if one assumes this is all true, it is very obvious that the poster’s husband is a perfect example of maliciously feigned incompetence. He’s manipulative and lazy to the point of cruelty, expecting his wife to work while he fails to lift a single functioning finger. The statement that “he likes her eggs better” isn’t cute like some have stated in the replies to this post; it’s just another excuse that walls him off from criticism, a bullshit reason he pulled out of his ass to make her feel guilty and unreasonable for being upset.

The absurdity of the situation when taken at face value — lying about eggs, getting mad about making eggs, even just the reality of deviled eggs (an inherently silly prep style) being someone’s favorite food — extends an air of the absurd to the wife’s concerns, and to others’ warnings. I have noticed several comments to the tune of, “These people are all mad about eggs? What a joke! How oversensitive. That’s just how men are; this is just what marriage looks like.”

It’s fucked up, is what it is.

…deviled egg lady, if you’re truly out there somewhere, I hope you told your husband to make his own goddamn eggs from now on. It’s literally the least he can do.

@manthedog

“It’s literally the least he can do.”

we all just witnessed a fucking murder and it was beautiful.

Real talk time, folks:

If your partner (I am deliberately not using gendered words here), frequently and unashamedly feigns ignorance or incompetence to get out of tasks that affect both of you, warn the asshole once, warn them twice, and then dump the lazy freeloader.

Even someone who is legitimately bad at something can become moderately good at it, if they put some effort in, especially if it is important daily life tasks like cooking, cleaning and laundry.

For example: say your partner can’t cook. Not even something simple like pasta with tomato sauce. They never remember how much salt and pepper to put in that tomato sauce and they always forget that they have the pasta on the stove and then the entire thing burns. Well guess what? That’s what we invented cook books and recipes and egg timers for. Write that shit down (which ingredients, how much, how long, which temperature, etc.), then show them how it is done, and show them how to set the timer on their fucking phone, because I guaran-goddamn-tee you that every modern phone comes with a timer function. Show them how to do it once. Show them how to do it twice. If they still fuck it up the third time, you either have someone on your hands who cannot read (in which case, wow, great trust they have in you, their partner, that they don’t even tell you about that) or who just can’t be bothered to follow step by step instructions that were neatly laid out for them.

Your time is too precious to waste it on constantly babysitting your partner. A relationship should never be unilateral. It’s a team effort. And within a team, everyone has to pull their weight. If they can’t work with you, they are working against you.

Like, I know how to do laundry, I know about separating things out, how different settings should be used etc. but I dump my load into the washer and ignore all that.

But it’s my clothes. And only my clothes. I don’t care if the colors run.

I would NEVER do that to my partner’s clothes. I don’t do that for my father’s clothes when I do his laundry (which is uncommon he usually does his own).

Weaponized ignorance/the bumbling man trope needs to fucking die. This shit is EASY. They just don’t want to do the work so they dump the effort onto their partners. It’s horrid.

One of my psychology professors actually talked about this in the context of her own husband and how she dealt with it, which was namely: don’t let your partner get away with not doing basic housework just because they’re “bad” at it. All you’re doing is teaching them that incompetence (genuine or not) is rewarded, and reinforcing that behaviour.

When she saw that he (genuinely or not) had no idea how to properly wash dishes, she showed him how to do it, then she stood beside him and talked him through doing it, then she watched him do it on his own.

When he fucked up the dishes again while unsupervised, she went through the whole process again - “here I’ll show you, now you do it while I watch”

She never got mad at him, or yelled, or did anything where she could be accused of overreacting or being dramatic, just acted every time like she was teaching a child how to do these things for the first time. And after two or three rounds of this, he would start doing chores properly while unsupervised, either because (a) he now actually knew how to do them properly, or (b) (more likely) he’d realized that feigning incompetence would not get him out of housework, and he’d have to go through the humiliating experience of being taught how to do it again every time he fucked it up. And eventually he stopped the “feigning incompetence” thing altogether and started asking for help if he couldn’t do something instead of just not doing it.

(of course, I completely understand if someone doesn’t want to go through this process and just dumps their partner’s ass for being an asshole, and it’s not always going to work if they’re determined/malicious about it rather than just doing what they’ve always done, but this is one way to deal with it)

I mean ideally if someone is really bad at something or hates doing something, maybe one partner keeps doing it and the other partner does something else in turn. But the problem with these bumbling “I’m just bad at any inconvenient chores” dudes is that they do this across the board. They’re not going to go out of their way to do something nice because one partner is lifting the devilled egg reponsibility on their own. My ex boyfriend told me for fucking MONTHS he was going to paint a section of the kitchen wall. FUCKING MONTHS. When he finally did it (cause I was suuuuuch a naggy bitch) it took 20 minutes. If someone universally can not make an effort for their partner, whether it be laundry or remembering their preferences or common courtesy, it’s a sign that they don’t care. And yes, I am fully aware that there are mental health issues to make that harder, I have plenty of them. So I will probably forget important names and dates, and that sucks, and I won’t enjoy getting up early with you either, but I’m very happy to do all the dishes or set out tea things the night before when I am still awake and you’re sleeping, even if I don’t wake up when you do. Affection really is in the little things, and it’s so disgusting how women are constantly berated for being “over emotional” or “blowing things out of proportion if they point out a small thing that is a symptom of a much bigger problem.

Women should not have to train their partners to do basic shit. There is a pervasive expectation that it’s a woman’s job to either a) do ALL the housework/emotional work/kinship work and/or b) train the men in their lives to do it, often while the men purposefully refuse to pay attention or retain the information. And it’s misogyny.

Men are capable of figuring shit out on their own, especially in the era of YouTube tutorials and wikihow shit. Their incompetence in the face of these resources is deliberate. They are deliberately choosing not to learn to do work that they know they can get the women in their lives to do.

That’s not women’s responsibility. Women should not be expected to keep track of all the household chores and assign some to their partner in the first place – men are capable of noticing when dishes need to be done or floors need to be swept. And women should especially not be expected to train the men in their lives in the details of how to do that work.

Men need to step the fuck up and take classes or do some googling to make sure they know how to do their share of household work. If they don’t, they’re choosing not to.

a secret code between women: are you safe? in a contact of eyes. i’m here if you need me, the littlest shift of a skirt, of an inclined head, of watching the man who is asking you to smile, bitch. you aren’t alone on the walls of restrooms, i was where you are too. the quiet doling of emergency numbers, the shelters. the space between two women in a largely empty train station. the waiting game of two women strangers who walk, quietly and quickly, to their cars in abandoned parking lots, who watch to be sure the other leaves safely. text me you get home safe. the tally marks of drinks on hidden wrists, carefully disguised as other things ever since men picked up on what it meant and used it to target the “weakest link.” 

my father tells me we have nothing to worry about. last night he sent me one of those email chains that say at the top “Safety Tips For The Women In Your Life!!!! Don’t Let Her Die!!” 

me, and the stranger on the train. she is asleep and the man is asking me who i am going home to. i feel tears pricking the sides of my eyes. i am 13 while he towers over me. he reaches out one hand, and while i don’t know how she knows, she speaks up without opening her eyes: “If you touch my daughter, sir, I will murder you.” Whatever he grumbles is lost in history, because this moment I am so grateful for the existence of other people that I cannot breathe.

I am 19 and on my phone when i become aware of a 13 year old girl is smiling nervously at a man who’s saying disgusting things. I grab her arm. “There you are, cindy,” I say, and then look at the man like he is bile. “Do you need something from my sister?” i ask, and i walk away with her. she cries later.

this is the way of things: a silent, secret web. our promise to each other that despite our differences, when it comes to the wire, we become family, instantly. the unspoken promise. i’m here. i’m watching. i’ll witness.

In the 1960′s Legally a woman couldn’t

This is why we needed feminism - this is why we know that feminism works

I just want to reiterate this stuff, because I legit get the feeling there are a lot of younger women for whom it hasn’t really sunk in what it is today’s GOP is actively trying to return to.

Did you go to a good college? Shame on you, you took a college placement that could have gone to a man who deserves and needs it to support or prepare for his wife & children. But if you really must attend college, well, some men like that, you can still get married if you focus on finding the right man.

Got a job? Why? A man could be doing that job. You should be at home caring for a family. You shouldn’t be taking that job away from a man who needs it (see college, above). You definitely don’t have a career – you’ll be pregnant and raising children soon, so no need to worry about promoting you.

This shit was within living memory.  I’M A MILLENIAL and my mother was in the second class that allowed women at an Ivy League school. Men who are alive today either personally remember shit like this or have parents/family who have raised them into thinking this was the way America functioned back in the blissful Good Old Days. There are literally dudes in the GOP old enough to remember when it was like this and yearn for those days to return.

When people talk about resisting conservativism and the GOP, we’re not just talking about whether the wage gap is a myth or not. We’re talking about whether women even have the fundamental right to exist as individuals, to run their own households and compete for jobs and be considered on an equal footing with men in any arena at all in the first place.

I was a child in the 1960s, a teenager in the 1970s, a young adult in the 1980s. This is what it was like: When I was growing up, it was considered unfortunate if a girl was good at sports. Girls were not allowed in Little League. Girls’ teams didn’t exist in high school, except at all-girls’ high schools. Boys played sports, and girls were the cheerleaders. People used to ask me as a child what I wanted to be when I grew up. I said I wanted to be a brain surgeon or the first woman justice on the Supreme Court. Everyone told me it was impossible–those just weren’t realistic goals for a girl–the latter, especially, because you couldn’t trust women to judge fairly and rationally, after all. In the 1960s and 1970s, all women were identified by their marital status, even in arrest reports and obituaries. In elementary school, my science teacher referred to Pierre Curie as DOCTOR Curie and Marie Curie as MRS. Curie…because, as he put it, “she was just his wife.” (Both had doctorates and both were Nobel prize winners, so you would think that both would be accorded respect.) Companies could and did require women to wear dresses and skirts. Failure to do could and did get women fired. And it was legal. It was also legal to fire women for getting married or getting pregnant. The rationale was that a woman who was married or who had a child had no business working; that was what her husband was for. Aetna Insurance, the biggest insurance company in America, fired women for all of the above. A man could rape his wife. Legally. I can remember being twelve years old and reading about legal experts actually debating whether or not a man could actually be said to coerce his wife into having sex. This was a serious debate in 1974. The debate about marital rape came up in my law school, too, in 1984. Could a woman be raped by her husband? The guys all said no–a woman got married, so she was consenting to sex at all times. So I turned it around. I asked them if, since a man had gotten married, that meant that his wife could shove a dildo or a stick or something up his ass any time she wanted to for HER sexual pleasure. (Hey, I thought it was reasonable. If one gender was legally entitled to force sex on the other, then obviously the reverse should also be true.) The male law students didn’t like the idea. Interestingly, they commented that being treated like that would make them feel like a woman. My reaction was, “Thank you for proving my point…” The concept of date rape, when first proposed, was considered laughable. If a woman went out on a date, the argument of legal experts ran, sexual consent was implied. Even more sickening was the fact that in some states–even in the early 1980s–a man could rape his daughter…and it was no worse than a misdemeanor. Women taking self-defense classes in the 1970s and 1980s were frequently described in books and on TV as “cute.” The implication was that it was absurd for a woman to attempt to defend herself, but wasn’t it just adorable for her to try? I was expressly forbidden to take computer classes in junior and senior years of high school–1978-79 and 1979-80–because, as the principal told me, “Only boys have to know that kind of thing. You girls are going to get married, and you won’t use it.” When I was in college–from 1980 to 1984–there were no womens’ studies. The idea hadn’t occurred in many places because the presumption was that there was nothing TO study. My history professor–a man who had a doctorate in history–informed me quite seriously that women had never produced a noted painter, sculptor, composer, architect or scientist because…wait for it…womens’ brains were too small. (He was very surprised when I came up with a list of fifty women gifted in the arts and science, most of whom he had never heard of before.) When Walter Mondale picked Geraldine Ferraro as a running mate in 1984, the press hailed it as a disaster. What would happen, they asked fearfully, if Mondale died and Ferraro became president? What if an international crisis arose and she was menstruating? She could push the nuclear button in a fit of PMS! It would be the end of the WORLD!! …No, they WEREN’T kidding. On the surface, things are very different now than they were when I was a child, a teen and a young adult. But I’m afraid that people now do not realize what it was like then. I’ve read a lot of posts from young women who say that they are not feminists. If the only exposure to feminism they have is the work of extremists, I cannot blame them overmuch. I wish that I could tell them what feminism was like when it was new–when the dream of legal equality was just a dream, and hadn’t even begun to come true. When “woman’s work” was a sneer–and an overt putdown. When people tut-tutted over bright and athletic girls with the words, “Really, it’s a shame she’s not a boy.” That lack of feminism wasn’t all men opening doors and picking up checks. A lot of it was an attitude of patronizing contempt that hasn’t entirely died out, but which has become less publicly acceptable. I wish I could make them feel what it was like…when grown men were called “men” and grown women were “girls.”

Know your history.

So this, too, is what they mean saying “make America great again” and/or the good old days.

I’m????

Oh my God this actually explains so much.

So there’s a known thing in the study of human psychology/sociology/what-have-you where men are known to, on average, rely entirely on their female romantic partner for emotional support. Bonding with other men is done at a more superficial level involving fun group activities and conversations about general subjects but rarely involves actually leaning on other men or being really honest about emotional problems. Men use alcohol to be able to lower their inhibitions enough to expose themselves emotionally to other men, but if you can’t get emotional support unless you’re drunk, you have a problem.

So men need to have a woman in their lives to have anyone they can share their emotional needs and vulnerabilities with. However, since women are not socialized to fear sharing these things, women’s friendships with other women are heavily based on emotional support. If you can’t lean on her when you’re weak, she’s not your friend. To women, what friendship is is someone who listens to all your problems and keeps you company.

So this disconnect men are suffering from is that they think that only a person who is having sex with you will share their emotions and expect support. That’s what a romantic partner does. But women think that’s what a friend does. So women do it for their romantic partners and their friends and expect a male friend to do it for them the same as a female friend would. This fools the male friend into thinking there must be something romantic there when there is not.

This here is an example of patriarchy hurting everyone. Women have a much healthier approach to emotional support – they don’t die when widowed at nearly the rate that widowers die and they don’t suffer emotionally from divorce nearly as much even though they suffer much more financially, and this is because women don’t put all their emotional needs on one person. Women have a support network of other women. But men are trained to never share their emotions except with their wife or girlfriend, because that isn’t manly. So when she dies or leaves them, they have no one to turn to to help with the grief, causing higher rates of death, depression, alcoholism and general awfulness upon losing a romantic partner. 

So men suffer terribly from being trained in this way. But women suffer in that they can’t reach out to male friends for basic friendship. I am not sure any man can comprehend how heartbreaking it is to realize that a guy you thought was your friend was really just trying to get into your pants. Friendship is real. It’s emotional, it’s important to us. We lean on our friends. Knowing that your friend was secretly seething with resentment when you were opening up to him and sharing your problems because he felt like he shouldn’t have to do that kind of emotional work for anyone not having sex with him, and he felt used by you for that reason, is horrible. And the fact that men can’t share emotional needs with other men means that lots of men who can’t get a girlfriend end up turning into horrible misogynistic people who think the world owes them the love of a woman, like it’s a commodity… because no one will die without sex. Masturbation exists. But people will die or suffer deep emotional trauma from having no one they can lean on emotionally. And men who are suffering deep emotional trauma, and have been trained to channel their personal trauma into rage because they can’t share it, become mass shooters, or rapists, or simply horrible misogynists.

The only way to fix this is to teach boys it’s okay to love your friends. It’s okay to share your needs and your problems with your friends. It’s okay to lean on your friends, to hug your friends, to be weak with your friends. Only if this is okay for boys to do with their male friends can this problem be resolved… so men, this one’s on you. Women can’t fix this for you; you don’t listen to us about matters of what it means to be a man. Fix your own shit and teach your brothers and sons and friends that this is okay, or everyone suffers.

The next time a guy says, “What? You don't want to be my friend?” I’ll text him this and then ask if he really wants to be friends or just have another potential girlfriend.

My Period Journey

I got my period completely unexpectedly. I hadn’t even been told a thing about it and was absolutely convinced something was wrong with me when I saw blood in my panties. I had to go, crying and scared, to my teacher. I had to sit, embarrassed and bloody, in the office and wait for my stepmom.

I was 9

The blood was thick, heavy, and I felt like I was going to throw up. My stomach rejected food, the part of my body I wasn’t even fully aware of yet was now always sticky and wet and gross and I was told it was completely and totally natural. No one told me it was okay to be afraid. No one prepared me.

“It’ll be over in a few days,” they said.

“It won’t come back until next month,” they said.

I was 10

Sleep started to elude me almost completely, and then I’d get so tired that my father had to literally drag me into a standing position so I’d start to become conscious. My stepmom didn’t explain that if my pad got full I could change it. She yelled at me because pads are expensive. I ruined almost all of my underwear because I didn’t want her to yell at me again. My dad refused to acknowledge it had happened at all. He has four daughters.

I was 11

A sharp pain gripped my side and I could barely breathe. I didn’t feel good. I begged to stay home from school. I was crying and clutching my side. Something wasn’t right.

“It’s normal,” they said.

“Don’t be so dramatic,” they said.

I passed out in science class. Woke up in the doctor’s office because my small town didn’t have a hospital and was told I’d had a ruptured ovarian cyst. I had four more cysts on my left one and at least three on my right. I needed to be on birth control and tested for PCOS.

I didn’t even know what an ovary was.

I was 12

My dad flat out refused to get me birth control. Said I didn’t need it. That there was no reason for a twelve year old to get on the pill. I’d just start having sex and who knows what else and that was that.

He’s a nurse.

I was 13

“What do you mean you’ve gone through the entire box of pads already?” my stepmother demanded, loud, shrieking. “There were 20 pads in there! How many days do you bleed?”

I didn’t know I was supposed to count.

“When does your period start? How many days between stop and start?”

I didn’t know I could count.

I started marking it all on my calendar. Some months there was nothing. Some months over half the days were filled in. I stole an entire box of pads from under the sink to hide in my room for my very own.

I was 14

New year, new calendar. I give my period tracking one to my stepmom and take her through it page by page. My periods last 10 days at the least. There is no consistent day my period begins and I show her.

“You just counted wrong,” she says.

I was 15

My legs swell. My back aches. I’ve got a headache. I puke up my dinner and shit out my breakfast five minutes after I ate it. I’ve bled all over my bed.

“You’re overreacting,” they said

“Don’t be such a baby,” they said

I was 16

I can’t eat for two straight days because if I do I will throw up. I’m not sick. I’m on my period.

It’s normal, I think.

I’m 17

I go through 40 pads this time.

It’s normal, I think.

I’m 18

I gained three pant sizes right before the blood shows up. I lay in bed all day with a heating pad across my shoulder blades, on my lower back, and one across my stomach. It doesn’t really help.

It’s normal, I think.

I’m 19

My own money. No health insurance. I moved away. Saw a doctor. I’m on birth control pills.

I’m 20

The pills have stopped working at easing my blood flow. The doctor tries a new pill. It does nothing. The doctor tries another pill. I can’t afford it. I don’t go to the doctor for four more years.

I’m 24

My girlfriend drags me to the doctor with my state health insurance. She tells the doctor about my symptoms. The doctor’s mouth opens slightly.

“That’s not normal,” she says.

I bleed for 28 days straight.

I’m diagnosed with Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome. The doctor asks if I want an IUD. I’ve never even heard of that.

My insurance pays for it. It’s free.

“Okay,” I say.

“It’s worth a try,” I say.

I haven’t had a period in months.

I am 25

My oncologist examines my medication list. “IUD? Birth control?” he asks. “You’re married. Don’t you want kids?” No. “What about your husband.” Wife. “Oh.”

My GP is out of town. I see a new doctor. We’re discussing surgeries. Is a hysterectomy an option?

“No,” he says. “You might marry a man who wants kids.” I’m married to a woman and I don’t want kids.

My dad is a nurse. He has four daughters.

“You’re married to a woman. Why are you on birth control?”

“Because I need to be,” I say. Finally. I say. “Because I want to be.”

Because it’s my body. Period.

Okay but after seeing this I started doing it too and it’s amazing how many men I’ve run into bc they expected me to move

Gotta try it

I work (and walk) on a college campus. I’ve lost count of how many men I’ve smacked shoulders with.

Recently, I was standing outside my son’s classroom waiting to talk to his teacher. I stood on one side of the hallway, not even close to the center. At some point, a man came walking along. I was standing right in his path, but the hallway was empty, so I logically expected him to swerve around me. Instead he kept walking right toward me, got to me, and stopped, as if waiting for me to get out of his way. I didn’t; I just smiled politely at him. He finally walked around me, clearly annoyed that I hadn’t leapt out of his manly path.

Now I’m wishing I’d leapt aside, taken off my jacket and laid it on the floor before him, then bowed deeply and said, “My Liege!”

I also work at a college campus. I smack shoulders sometimes, but I find that if I stare straight ahead and follow the advice below, people get the heck out of the way.

Honestly this post changed how I carry myself when walking alone in public, or in a situation where I’m the one leading. People definitely move for the murder gaze.

Confirmed. I once had to rush back inside a convention hall as the con was closing in order to a retrieve a sick friend’s medication, and I didn’t understand why people in the crowd were jumping out of my way (literally—one guy vaulted a table) until I realized I was dressed as the Winter Soldier and doing the Murder Walk because that’s just how I walk in those boots. I got the meds, got out, and made a mental note.

I repeated the experiment later, wearing the boots but otherwise my usual clothing and mimicking the expression I thought I’d had at that moment. People parted like I was Charlton Heston.

I now wear that style of boots whenever possible. I recently had a man do a double-take as I walked by and ask me, politely, where I had served because I “looked like a soldier.” I’m not current or former military. I was wearing a flowy purple peasant top and looked as un-soldierlike as possible.

Moral of the story: wear comfortable shoes, square your shoulders, and walk like you’ve been sent to murder Captain America.

WALK LIKE YOU’VE BEEN SENT TO MURDER CAPTAIN AMERICA

It’s called the Murder Strut.

IT’S BACK!!!!!! I was searching for this to show my daughter the other day and couldn’t find it. I’m so glad IT’S BACK!! I will always reblog the Murder Strut!!

A guy on a bike went around me because he could tell I had no intention of moving. Thanks to this post.

This post went from Scientific to Feminist to Educational to HILARIOUS!

#make men get the fuck out of the way 2k17

I do this now. Stand my ground. Men look flabberghasted that i wont move out of the way. The most annoying thing is when i’m walking along holding Superpups hand (he’s 2.5 years old), and people walk right up to us and expect to go between us… so for me to let go of my toddlers hand for the sake of them. One person i actually had to put my free hand out and onto their chest to block the person to stop before they ploughed into us.

Why does being a woman put you at greater risk of having anxiety? Part biology, part what we teach our kids about their place in the world.

If having more women in your show will automatically make said show all about sex then you need a new team of writers that actually know how to write female characters.

Women are not automatically and solely sexual objects. That is not all we bring to the table. We are more than just love interests. Our stories are important too.

This is so poorly answered it makes my head hurt. I just don’t understand it. There’s been sex and romantic subplots on the show, we had Sam showing off his abs, and there have been/are kickass female characters who are not just love interests nor sexual objects. What is he talking about?

I feel like he’s mostly parroting Kripke and trying to offer an interpretation (which, i hope, has probably nothing to do with how our current writers feel on the matter).

Still, meh, stupid and hurtful answer.

is it time for frank cho and milo manara to die or what

That’s basically a naked woman I’m YELLING

What a pervert. What the FUCK does he not know how clothes work? What the hypothetical fuck is she wearing then if we can see all that?

It’s like how bath towels in comics miraculously wrap completely around breasts. Or how even when injured and dead on the ground women in comics have to be twisted into “sexy” poses. Or how women in comics walk like they’re in high heels even barefoot. 

It’s the only way men know how to draw women, because to them female characters are only there to be sexy. They only think of “women” as exploitative costumes and camera angles, high heels and titillation. Sex objects to ogle, plot objects to further male heroes’ narratives and drama, not heroes to cheer for. 

I’m sorry, I was labouring under the impression that this was the crowd that thought women should wear what they want..?

And that applies to fictional women who are depicted by men how? You can’t apply agency in the plot to something metatextual when it comes to fictional characters. 

Come on, let’s not pretend this is a male exclusive thing.

We’re going to have this argument are we? Not to mention you’re deviating from the original point that attributing agency to fictional characters’ clothing is asinine. 

What you have here are images of power, and do you really believe these characters are designed with titillating heterosexual women and bisexual and homosexual men in mind? Because I don’t think you do.

This is why the Hawkeye Initiative exists. Take common female poses in comics, put a man in the role, and see how “empowering” and “strong” it actually looks: 

Also: 

He got the painting for fighting against ‘censorship.’ Note that they handed him a gross design of a female being objectified, because at the end of the day, that is all they really want, to be allowed to objectify women. They don’t care about censorship in general it is about their ability to sexualise and degrade women without consequence.

You can see her butthole for chrissakes

I think the best imagery I’ve seen to explain the difference between what men think male objectification is vs what women actually want to see is the Hugh Jackman magazine covers.

Hugh Jackman on a men’s magazine. He’s shirtless and buff and angry. He’s imposing and aggressive. This is a male power fantasy, it’s what men want to be and aspire to - intense masculinity.

Hugh Jackman on a women’s magazine.  He looks like a dad. He looks like he’s going to bake me a quiche and sit and watch Game of Thrones with me. He looks like he gives really good hugs.

Men think women want big hulking naked men in loin cloths which is why they always quote He-Man as male objectification - without realizing that He Man is naked and buff in a loin cloth because MEN WANT HIM TO BE. More women would be happy to see him in a pink apron cutting vegetables and singing off-key to 70s rock.

Men want objects. Women want PEOPLE.

This is the first time I have EVER seen this false equivalence articulated so well. Thank you.

@angstymelon

I feel like people who claim the “female gaze” is the same as female objectification and the male gaze are, in very liberal fashion, speaking as if the two phenomena existed in a void. There’s at least two major aspects being ignored:

- first, muscular male nakedness is socially coded as a symbol of power beloning to subject and it takes effort to untie it from this imagery; viceversa slim, curvy female bodies are socially coded as vulnerable and exploitable and it takes effort to untie them from this imagery. It’s possible to represent a naked or semi-naked female body as powerful, and buff male nakedness as vulnerable, but I can only think of very rare occasions when I’ve seen an artist do it. As already noted, almost all male bodies, even when displayed from sexy angles, are still connoted with power. Nakedness, tight clothes, and sexy poses are not neutral, they’re rife with prior social significations;

- second, female objectification exists in a wider context of systemic oppression. While male bodies may be occasionally displayed so as to focus on sexualized parts of the body, or so as to sexualize parts of their body, this sexualization still exists withing a context where fictional men at large are the sole or primary detentors of agency, real-life men at large are granted more agency, speech rights, and definition power than women, and men both real and fictional are still at large considered as the neutral and universal, i.e. as the Human. Even a vulnerable sexualized male body will usually belong to a character who retains his humanity, and who exists in a universe of male characters and real-life men with the aforementioned priviledges. Moreover, when a man’s body is diplayed as sexual, unless the traditional imagery is subverted so that the image conveys a sense of vulnerability or open submission, his sexualization is directly tied to the power he exudes and viceversa. His sexual prowess, as sugested by his naked powerfulness, is socially rewarded. Patriarchal societies literally venerate the penis as a symbol of power. Fictional women, on the other hand, are still disproportionately wrote into a story with the sole or primary purpose of being sexually enticing and/or available, they’re made to defer sexually to men, often have less agency, are often casted in the role of silent supporters, damsels in distress, and rewards for male heroes. They are often primarily objects and then, if at all, people - and this happens to them in real life too, where objectification has been used to maintain power over them and where among the many other discriminations women face, they’re still subject to various forms of violence, from microaggressions to severe physical, emotional and sexual violence, because way too many men expect to have a right to their bodies.

Occasional hyperfocus on body parts for the purpose of aesthetic and sexual pleasure is not bad per se - it’s the frequency of it and the place it occupies for women within a patriarchal system that make female objectification a problematic issue.

I can’t believe they oblitered straight men like that

@tabbran please add lemon man story to this

PRESENTING LEMON MAN

That was a wild goddamn ride

“Yes, being in a female dominated field, I do know what it means to be marginalized. “

oh

my

god

omg

oh my fucking god

The really ugly part is they’ve actually done multiple sociological studies on this, and guess what the result is? Men in female-dominated fields aren’t marginalized at all; they get special treatment and are fast-tracked to the top, getting more credit for their work, faster promotions, and greater pay and benefits than their female colleagues.

Here’s one study. Here’s another. And another.

^phenomenon known as the glass escalator

have you ever been around male nurses….mannnn

Men in female dominated fields are entitled as hell. Don’t get it twisted

i woke up still mad about joss whedon. especially about this: “… you’ve got delusions of grandeur and some actual grandeur, which is confusing. i don’t like confusing.”

the Fuck! this is what misogyny looks like. “you seem complex and layered, and that bothers me.” the Fuck??????? women characters are PEOPLE. having men characters react negatively to their complexity is a denial of women’s full humanity. it’s especially ugly to do this when the character is a power fantasy specifically for women. male power fantasy characters– like every other fucking superhero ever– are REWARDED for complexity or depth or even contradiction. (or take any dude anti-hero. that’s what an anti-hero IS: a character that can’t be nailed down to either wholly one thing or the other, assigned good or bad.) what lady love interest in a male superhero film is EVER like “oh, you’re tough but also tender… stubborn and angry but consumed with truth and justice…. which is super confusing, i need you to settle on a single trait.” no!! no!!! it doesn’t happen! their complexity is considered fascinating and compelling and humanizing!!!!

telling women that their heroes and power fantasies are threatening is fucking devastating. it says, go back in the box, if you want us to love you. “be simpler, be less complex, your complexity is a challenge to me. my boner wants you, but my pride wants you humbled before me.” Fuck You!!!!! Fuck You!!!!!! i hope patty jenkins’ wonder woman comes to life like in the “last action hero” and fucking throws rocks at you!!!! big fucking rocks!!!!!

contrast that terrible steve to the steve we saw on-screen in a woman-directed movie: a steve who was kind and mature, who had an urge to help and protect her, but who in combat almost IMMEDIATELY shifted himself to a support position because he recognized and respected her power and 100% knew she should be taking the lead. THAT’S how you pair up a fucking literal goddess of love and justice and a regular-ass man: you make him someone who is deeply inspired by her, you make him someone who is striving to rise to her level. you don’t try to drag her down so he’s more comfortable using her as a footstool!! joss whedon you fucking creep!!!! you fucking lizard person!!!!!!!

Brigid Schulte: Why time is a feminist issue (via librarianbyday)

My father, an activist and artist, told me I wouldn’t be able to be an artist when I had kids, because I would have to give all my time and energy to them.

This was said in 2005 when I was pregnant with my first child. 

And I have also been told on this very site that I had no right to have opinion, outside interests, or write because I should be taking care of my children. This was said, most recently, in November 2016, by a woman who claims to be interested in the rights of women. 

Let’s think about what that means.

(via toospoopyformyshirt)

TIME IS A FEMINIST ISSUE.

(via springsnotfail)