because it is important
Oh god. I'm reading through the Feminism 101 articles over at Shakesville and trying to keep up with the politics and trying to browse through assorted electronics sites for Aaron's birthday. Oh god. I'm losing my mind a little bit here. This is too much to handle.
Okay. Breathing. Taking a break.
Anyway, here are a few of things from Feminism 101 which are recommended reading to every person who thinks and feels and cares and that's only because I can't make it compulsory. It was so hard simply to pick so few of them. Because I shouldn't have to feel afraid of being alone in public; or being out at night; I shouldn't feel apprehensive about getting drunk or wearing revealing clothing; I shouldn't have felt like I needed to shave my legs at twelve; because nobody is ever "asking for it" whether "it" be a beating or being raped or being slurred at or anything, and teenagers should know that but they don't.
Possible triggers are labelled here as they are on the site, but there is always the potential for it all to be triggering to somebody.
Rape Culture 101
Trigger Warning"But my correspondents [...] always seem to be looking for something more comprehensive and less abstract: What is the rape culture? What are its borders? What does it look like and sound like and feel like? It is not a definition for which they're looking; not really. It's a description. It's something substantive enough to reach out and touch, in all its ugly, heaving, menacing grotesquery."
The Terrible Bargain We Have Regretfully Struck
Trigger Warning"Always the subtle pressure to abandon my principles to trash this woman or that woman, as if I'll never twig to the reality that there's always a justification for unleashing the misogyny, for hating a woman in ways reserved only for women. I am exhorted to join in the cruel revelry, and when I refuse, suddenly the target is on my back. And so it goes."
More
"'What do you expect?' I expect more."
On Men Being A Part Of The Solution: Maybe One Day...
"[T]that the subject could never come up among men is simply astounding. And yet I am assured by the men in my life, it does not. Of the issues with which they concern themselves, sending them into tumbling debates about what should be done and how best to solve the problem-the environment, poverty, encroachments on civil liberties, etc. etc. etc.-the fact that one out of four women will be raped in her lifetime, and many more yet victims of domestic abuse, rarely, if ever, makes the list."
On The Feminine As An Insult: Seriously, Learn To Equality
"I have listened to men express directly to my face in every way imaginable that they would never want to be a woman... And most of them have been surprised when I had a problem with that-because, you see, we're all supposed to take it as read that no one would want to be a woman, given the choice, since we all know they're the inferior model."
Okay. Breathing. Taking a break.
Anyway, here are a few of things from Feminism 101 which are recommended reading to every person who thinks and feels and cares and that's only because I can't make it compulsory. It was so hard simply to pick so few of them. Because I shouldn't have to feel afraid of being alone in public; or being out at night; I shouldn't feel apprehensive about getting drunk or wearing revealing clothing; I shouldn't have felt like I needed to shave my legs at twelve; because nobody is ever "asking for it" whether "it" be a beating or being raped or being slurred at or anything, and teenagers should know that but they don't.
Possible triggers are labelled here as they are on the site, but there is always the potential for it all to be triggering to somebody.
Rape Culture 101
Trigger Warning"But my correspondents [...] always seem to be looking for something more comprehensive and less abstract: What is the rape culture? What are its borders? What does it look like and sound like and feel like? It is not a definition for which they're looking; not really. It's a description. It's something substantive enough to reach out and touch, in all its ugly, heaving, menacing grotesquery."
The Terrible Bargain We Have Regretfully Struck
Trigger Warning"Always the subtle pressure to abandon my principles to trash this woman or that woman, as if I'll never twig to the reality that there's always a justification for unleashing the misogyny, for hating a woman in ways reserved only for women. I am exhorted to join in the cruel revelry, and when I refuse, suddenly the target is on my back. And so it goes."
More
"'What do you expect?' I expect more."
On Men Being A Part Of The Solution: Maybe One Day...
"[T]that the subject could never come up among men is simply astounding. And yet I am assured by the men in my life, it does not. Of the issues with which they concern themselves, sending them into tumbling debates about what should be done and how best to solve the problem-the environment, poverty, encroachments on civil liberties, etc. etc. etc.-the fact that one out of four women will be raped in her lifetime, and many more yet victims of domestic abuse, rarely, if ever, makes the list."
On The Feminine As An Insult: Seriously, Learn To Equality
"I have listened to men express directly to my face in every way imaginable that they would never want to be a woman... And most of them have been surprised when I had a problem with that-because, you see, we're all supposed to take it as read that no one would want to be a woman, given the choice, since we all know they're the inferior model."