"If I didn’t define myself for myself, I would be crunched into other people’s fantasies for me and eaten alive."
— (via fuckyeahaudrelordequotes)
"It is in vain to say human beings ought to be satisfied with tranquillity: they must have action; and they will make it if they cannot find it. Millions are condemned to a stiller doom than mine, and millions are in silent revolt against their lot. Nobody knows how many rebellions besides political rebellions ferment in the masses of life which people earth. Women are supposed to be very calm generally: but women feel just as men feel; they need exercise for their faculties, and a field for their efforts, as much as their brothers do; they suffer from too rigid a restraint, too absolute a stagnation, precisely as men would suffer; and it is narrow-minded in their more privileged fellow-creatures to say that they ought to confine themselves to making puddings and knitting stockings, to playing on the piano and embroidering bags. It is thoughtless to condemn them, or laugh at them, if they seek to do more or learn more than custom has pronounced necessary for their sex."
— Jane Eyre- Charlotte Bronte
This falls straight into placing the blame on the victim. “If you didn’t dress like…” and “If you weren’t on that street at 11PM, like a good woman shouldn’t be…” and so on. It’s placing the fault for a rape on the victim instead of on the aggressor, which seems so strongly drilled into our society that we often do it without actually thinking about it.
We need to change how we look at such acts.
Consciously. Everywhere.
(Source: seveneighths, via avoidthisspace)
(Source: prisingh, via micropsialies)
"
Let’s examine this:
Miss is a word for a woman that has not been married.
Mrs. is an abbreviation of the word Mistress, used as a title for a woman that is married or widowed.
Ms. is a title used for a woman whose marital status is unknown or irrelevant (as in business).
The letters Ms. are not an abbreviation of a word, they are an amalgamation drawn from the letters of Miss and Mrs.
On the other hand, a man is just a mister (Mr.)
You see men don’t have to determine their sexual availability like women.
"—
Laila Alsabahi (via goodpeopledosomething)
I remember some gobshite in the bank tried to tell me I couldn’t be down as Ms. because that was for divorced women. like, what. I can decide which title I get, asshole. This was another woman, too. We do love internalising that shit.
(via esmeweatherwax)
Always Ms
(via ladymaxwell)
(Source: faineemae, via petitesurrealiste)
“You are too hasty, Sir,” she cried. “You forget that I have made no answer. Let me do it without farther loss of time. Accept my thanks for the compliment you are paying me, I am very sensible of the honour of your proposals, but it is impossible for me to do otherwise than decline them.”
“I am…
"For example, when a man strips off his clothes in a nightclub act, he doesn’t also take off his dignity, autonomy, and power as a human being, because there’s nothing in patriarchal culture that would interpret his behavior as giving up anything of real value to the women who watch him perform. If anything, he can get the male-centered satisfaction of having his body admired by women who lack the social power to treat his body like admired property. His relation to women in the audience doesn’t reflect a larger social reality in which men’s bodies are routinely regarded as objects to be sought after and controlled by women. But a woman who strips does so in a very different social context that changes entirely the meaning of her behavior and that of the men who watch her. In a patriarchal culture, her body has significance primarily in relation to men who value rights of access and use through various forms of contract, force, or purchase, from the bonds of love or marriage to prostitution to rape. Men who pay women to strip in front of them do far more than pay to watch someone they find beautiful or arousing take off her clothes. They also participate in a much wider social pattern that defines women’s existence in relation to pleasing men, to meeting male standards of attractiveness, and to being available for men’s appropriation and use. To some degree, the price of admission buys men the right to feel, if only in short-lived fantasy, a sense of indirect control over women’s bodies. Women who watch men strip, on the other hand, will find little in mainstream patriarchal culture that supports viewing or treating men in this way."
—
The Gender Knot - Allan G. Johnson
(via egyptiansoapbox)
(via petitesurrealiste)
Ladies and Gentlemen, the Prime Minister of Australia kicking ass and taking names (mostly Tony Abbott’s).
JGill is not in the mood for your bullshit tonight Tony
Don’t normally reblog this sort of thing, but JGilly tellin big tonz how it is. You go gurl
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-10-09/julia-gillard-attacks-abbott-of-hypocrisy/4303634
Video of it. MY JAW DROPPED AND I WANTED TO STAND UP AND CLAP. Honestly, I don’t know how parliaments in other countries compare to the United States (from what I’ve seen, many of them seem to be a lot more aggro/upfront, but I will admit I’m no expert in the subject and might be wrong?), but all I could think is how I… feel like I’ve never seen a political call-out of sexism that was this frank, in this kind of a venue? I mean, you see a lot of talks about women’s rights! Which are important, but I feel you don’t really see BLATANT CALL-OUTS OF SEXISM, AS IN OTHER PEOPLE BEING SEXIST, all that much. Probably because sexists will often use that as ammo to paint the woman as a “shrew,” and I think that’s a powerful silencer. Props to JGill for being so unafraid to be firm and thorough and tell it like it is.
http://longlivelonglive.tumblr.com/post/7751105966/womenaresociety-unbelievable-a-must-watch
I was watching this the other night, for what it’s worth. JGill’s comments are sort of a potent cleansing of that bullshit.
(Source: numbtongue, via densitychaser)
(Source: drunkonstephen, via geminizingallthatisme)
"Men are afraid women will laugh at them. Women are afraid men will kill them."
— Margaret Atwood
(Source: in-a-perfect-w0rld)
To people who discredit musicals and musical theatre as feminine or soft (reblog and add more?)
- Rock of Ages: Entirely composed of classic rock songs wrapped around a somewhat cliché but entirely American ideal of saving what you believe in. (Movie edition bonus: Alec Baldwin and Russell Brand fall in love)
- West Side Story: Take Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet (already very bloody and twisted), and add GANG VIOLENCE.
- Lion King: Shakespeare's Hamlet (again, bloody and twisted, probably moreso than R&J) with MOTHERFUCKING LIONS.
- A Very Potter Musical and Sequel: Jesus, you don't even have to like Harry Potter! Swearing, sarcasm, violence, insults, and VIOLENCE.
- American Idiot: For the love of God, they put together a Broadway musical of GREEN DAY SONGS.
- Les Misérables: Um, murder, revolution, crime, betrayal, corruption, suicide? Sure, there's a romantic story, but still RED AND BLACK.
- Shrek the Musical: The loveable green behemoth farts and burps his way across the stage for a few hours with a talking jackass and also a talking Donkey.
- Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog: Well, first we have Neil Patrick Harris, who is manliness made corporeal, Then we have an evil scheme and top it off with a bloody death.
- Young Frankenstein: I don't think this musical goes five minutes without making a sex joke. From "Please Don't Touch Me" to "Roll in the Hay", I was honestly uncomfortable watching this with my mother.
- Chicago: Scantily clad wome brag about brutally murdering their partners. Corruption, media whores and courtrooms.
- Billy Elliot: Miners stand strong together in solidarity during the strike and bad mouth Margaret Thatcher. Plus loads of swearing and anger.
- Next To Normal: Tons of swearing, about a family whose mother deals with depression. The daughter does prescription drugs, daughter's boyfriend is a stoner, father begins to have depression, the son is actually dead, and the doctor is a scary rockstar.
- Rent: AIDS, poverty, death, marijuana, a crossdresser, homosexuality and a stripper. Obviously it's /very/ girly. (also heroin)
- Spring Awakening: It's basically porn on stage, plus swearing and beating and more porn
- Avenue Q: There are songs called "You Can Be As Loud As The Hell You Want (When You're Making Love)", "If You Were Gay", and "The Internet is for Porn." Enough said.
- While this list is accurate, it also implies that there is something inherently negative about anything having characteristics that could be described as stereotypically feminine. That's an idea I can't get behind- that being a woman is less worthwhile than being a man (not that I am condoning gender roles either)
