nightime rain

{maison margiela resort 2016, photos courtesy of maison margiela by way of style.com}

ff

here is a thing that is not the worst.

{legits the best thing}

alanah pearce is a game journalist who contacts the moms of internet boys who send her rape threats. and alanah pearce is friggin great. all the cheering and jazz handing for alanah pearce.

happy friday, don't forget you have a mom.

ff

 {photo & tweet from dante barry}

 

* from michael brown to assata shakur, the racist state of america persists - angela davis 

{angela davis in the guardian}

 

and also:





 

* what ferguson means for black women - chaedria labourier

 

{...}

 {chaedria labourier in elle}

 

(i am so glad to be seeing a piece like that in a major fashion magazine. it is what i hope for but not what i expect.)

 

this has been a very hard week. spread the voices of those at the front of this movement. please please let it have an effect.

today i read

{bijan stephen on medium}

* The Talk

(this one deserves very much the capital letters i so rarely use here.)
(and doesn't that fear sound like the fear you have felt being a woman alone in an elevator, cab, bar, boy's home, street, etc etc etc. i find it comforting, though sad, to feel as though i can have some level of connectedness to this pain and fear. that we can share some small solidarity.)

take it from my sight

{from here}

if you are not following what is happening in ferguson, start right this second. this one is a big one. this is one we will remember.

if you are not heartbroken and furious, you are not paying attention.

my heart is broken. that country is broken.

i have been sitting up these last few nights, and last week, watching. suppressing the desire to throw up. not able to suppress the tears. i am thinking about the brother from ragtime... he wanted to say... every day i wake up knowing what you've lost and what is owing...
yeah, i know i'm comparing it to a musical, i know, i know. but it is so fucking sad, that's all i can handle. we are all coalhouse. we are all michael brown.

say goodbye to music, say goodbye to light.

forgive me the cheesiness. it's all way too much without it.

i read the second autopsy and couldn't stop weeping.
that was an 18 year old boy.
arms up.
head hanging.

and left. laying there.

(someone on twitter pointed out the tragic poetry in the medical examiner being the same man who reviewed the autopsies of jfk and mlk jr.)

we'll never get to heaven till we reach that day...

you do not shoot an unarmed human person six times. you don't. you don't you don't. not for jaywalking or for shoplifting. not for anything.

(and FUCK you for that narrative, as if shoplifting could ever come close to a motive - ignoring that the cop didn't know that michael was suspected. find me a teenaged white girl who never shoplifted a lipstick, a pair of earrings... i honestly can't handle that there are people out there who thought that saying this human, this BOY, wasn't an innocent victim because of fucking shoplifting? or any other bullshit character assassination. it wouldn't matter if he was a total piece of shit. that's not the point. the point is. unarmed. unarmed. no. furious.)

you do not threaten to shoot a reporter when you are supposed to be de-escalating a rage built up by and boiled over by the unjustifiable and obscene shooting of a human person. you do not dress up in military grade armour and call people animals when one of yours has murdered one of theirs.

it is all so very far gone beyond wrong.
a day of peace, a day of pride, a day of justice: we have been denied. let the new day dawn, oh lord i pray...

{from the daily mail}

ff

don't be that guy.

but seriously. don't be that guy.

this week i've learned that some people i know and don't hate consider themselves MRAs. which is veeerrrrry disappointing. because men's right activist is not a catch-all for people-who-think-that-there-are-issues-that-affect-men. yesssss there are issue of gender inequality which affect men. if you read/learn feminism that ISN'T written by MRAs (feminazi, gag, vomit, punch, scream, i hate that term so much, i can't even) you would know that feminism does consider those issues... the hyper-masculine-ideal-culture ain't good for many/most people. duh. fucking duh. MRAs are a hate group. is every single MRA a piece of human garbage? probs not. some are probably relatively well intended but immensely ignorant to their privilege and the realities of gender politics. but, well-intended or not, aligning yourself with them is supporting their baseline which is: anti-female, hateful, aggressive, harassing, disgusting. it is like saying that you are a white supremacist, but, like, you aren't a racist. come. the. fuck. on. i was exceedingly kind to these people-i-know-who-call-themselves-MRAs. i gave them a reeeeaaal benefit of the doubt, gentle, polite, considerate kind of conversation about why they might not wanna be linking arms with these groups. i didn't go into the absurdity of reverse-sexism and the fact that hetero white men are not exactly lacking for platforms. consider that my good deed of the month. what i wanted to do was submit them to a fear-campaign where their private information gets published and dispersed all over the internet to people who hate them just for existing and having thoughts, i wanted to drown them in hateful, violent, name-calling and threats, i wanted them to be publicly ridiculed and harassed at such a rate that they think 'fuck it, i'm too scared, to sad, too tired', except, oh wait, that's not feminism's m.o. that's some other group's... but don't just take my word for it. educate yourself, yo:

"It is a backlash group against women's rights and feminism. Other backlash groups include the KKK and "white pride" who wish to reverse the rights of blacks by arguing that white people are oppressed. Similarly, MRAs want to abolish women's rights by lying that men are oppressed. Also, groups like KKK have been known to support violence against blacks, and MRAs are known for their support of violence against women. Both groups argue that blacks and women should stop "whining" and that racism/misogyny are not real."

* urban dictionary does a good job of breakin it down, as quoted above

* the belle jar sums up nicely why MRAs are garbage

* the american prospect points out that MRAs are harmful to men too, duh

* lots of info and links and so on here

happy friday, all y'all scaaaary ladies.

ff

do y'all wanna know what the best feminist friday gift ever is? A NIECE! thanks, hoops and janice! welcome, little stella catherine. oh man i'm stoked about this tiny human. woooo!

{yes my nails coordinate very well with my book, thank you for noticing!}

meanwhile. if you've been up on my instagram or twitter lately, you'll know i'm finally enjoying the magician's book. (thanks peter! loving it.) in one chapter we learn that c.s. lewis had originally drafted the storyline for the lion, the witch and the wardrobe with a little boy as the main character. but when he got round to writing it the person who ends up leading the novel is lucy. the youngest of the pevensie kids, and (duh) a girl.

i remember hearing an interview with j.k. rowling back when harry potter was new where she talked about writing a male lead so that both female and male readers would be willing to engage with the books. and that's a sentiment i've seen/heard fairly often since - that girls are more open to associating with a boy character than the other way round. (the idea being that we are brought up believing that being 'girly' is a negative, but that being male is kinda actually just being ungendered... the starting point... the standard. or something more carefully considered and written than i'm saying here, but that isn't my point today, blah blah!) ANYWAYS! here's some of what laura miller says that i found interesting:

'...the boy characters in the Edwardian children's fiction Lewis grew up with didn't have much emotional range. {...} Writing about Narnia released something free, lyrical, and tender in Lewis, and non of those qualities fit within the limitations of what he would have viewed as an acceptable boy character.

Practically the first thing we learn about Lucy in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is that she is "a little afraid" of the strange-looking professor and easily creeped out by the huge old house with its empty rooms and corridors.  This is perfectly understandable in a small girl, but Peter, unless he was very little indeed, would seem a coward if he expressed the same apprehension.  Edmund can be afraid - of the White Witch, to give one example - but only when he is playing the quisling.  After his reconciliation with Aslan and his siblings, he has to reclaim our admiration; accordingly, he becomes the most valiant warrior at the Battle of Beruna.  Lucy, by comparison, can be vulnerable, can even waver at times, without ever coming across as weak; if anything, her courage, when she exhibits it, is all the more commendable because no one expects it of her.'

{from chapter six of the magician's book, pg 70-71}

and thus we have an example of where little boys get shafted in this whole feminine/masculine thang. the male pevensies are not allowed the depth or breadth of character that lucy is, because 'boys don't cry' or whatever. sadness. there's plenty more on that subject in miller's book (and on lewis' handling of women vs girls, susan's fall from grace as she grows into a 'vain, silly' thing, and so on), but i'll leave it there with that little nugget to think on. y'all will have to borrow and read this guy! hoops & janice - seeing as you have babies who'll almost certainly be read the narnia books by a grandfather i know - you will want to be fully up to date on the analysis!

okay happy friday to babies everywhere!

petit d

{when you were the brand-newest baby}

 
dear tiny nephew:
today you will become a big brother.
i don't know what it is like to be one of those, but i do know that having one is the very best thing in the whole world.
your tiny sibling is gonna be looking up to you for the rest of forever, and thinking you're just the most magical thing. so try not to be mean unless they really deserve it, and have patience as they learn how to be a real human over the years. even if they cry a lot. like, a lot a lot...
love, your previous-baby-of-the-family aunt

ff

BODY BREAK!

with the mudder and all, i'm feeling big time physical-fit, and so i thought this would be a good week to think about bodies and how we women are told to use them. we've talked about it before, surely. strength vs size vs function and so on. i don't want to get all repetitive up in here. but! there's a new resource out there in internet-land talking to women about fitness!

"We, the Ms. Fits, believe that living consciously includes being conscious of the world outside of the yoga or Pilates studio and that our wellness also depends on the wellness of the earth and everyone on the earth;  We believe that reproductive rights are human rights, and all girls and women deserve access to healthy food and active play, and that strong women kick ass."

{a bit of the ms. fit manifesto}

I haven't gotten through a tonne of ms. fit magazine's content yet, but i'm excited about what i've seen so far.  they cover a lot of ground, from sports news to ask-a-feminist-sex-questions to recipes to running and yoga and martial arts annnnnd... how 'bout an article about the post-baby-body that isn't just about how you can lose the baby weight?

so that is great.

and!

we have a feminist of the week today. my boss. my boss has a son who turned 4 this week. my boss was super-excitedly telling us about the celebrations he had planned. and how he had spent a night putting together the brand new, all pink, tasseled bike that his son had asked for. it has belle on it. from beauty and the beast. my boss didn't try to convince his son to pick a different bike. a red or blue or black or yellow bike. a spiderman or prince charming bike or even a beast-from-beauty-and-the-beast bike. he didn't teach his son that there was something wrong with wanting that pink belle bike. he got him that bike and it is just the best thing i've heard in ages. i maybe got just a little teary when he told us.