act your (r)age

By anon request: A list of reasons why The Big Bang Theory is terrible.

theongreyjoy:

• Erases female fandom nerds out of the equation almost entierly, presenting the idea that women don’t go to comic book stores, arcades, conventions, or other fandom based activities (you know, because being a nerd is totally male exclusive/that space is entirely for men)  WOMEN CAN APPARENTLY BE SMART OR SOCIALLY INEPT BUT U’LL NEVER SEE 1 HAVE A LORD OF THE RINGS MARATHON LOL.
• Patronizes male nerds as a lot of pathetic dweebs that have absolutely no social conditioning and are terrified of women.
• Places female characters in emotionally abusive relationships with male characters (Sheldon/Amy is disgusting and terrible, Howard’s treatment of Bernedette is even more disgusting because he doesn’t even have the excuse of having aspergers). The show completely strips said male characters of any sort of responsibility over their actions and plays up their controlling, selfish behavior as something quirky and funny as all of the girls respond at the end of the day with an OH YOU!
• One character only exists to be the butt of racist jokes. One character only exists to be the butt of aspergers jokes. 
• Laughs at the idea of loving nerdy/fandom stuff as opposed to laughing at the situations the characters get into or laughing with nerds (see: community). There is literally a laugh track moment after Sheldon says he found his N64. 
• Treats it’s non nerdy main female character with a mixture of slut shame-y, idealized object of desire grossness and using her to make the point that being nerdy = being a freak (making you feel bad for her and angry that she’s used as Chuck Lorre’s mouthpiece about why being a nerd is so St00pid)
• Leaves no room for other “kinds” of nerds. In a day and age when nerdy interests are actually fairly chice, it’s strange that every nerd on the show is portrayed as pathetic and socially inept.
• Seriously you’d think this show was written in the 1960’s
• Im pretty sure that Chuck Lorre has this idea in his head that all nerds are white males with coke bottle glasses that got thrown into dumpsters in high school and think that girls are either 2spooky4u or unattainable sex objects meant to cater to their whims and desires. 

My (Hopefully Final) Words on Azealia

ancientcontemporaries:

sapphrikah:

Azealia Banks hit the scene fucking HARD. Toting around these labyrinthine lyrics, harsh harlem accents, and slut witch fashions. Technically, her first album hasn’t even dropped yet and she’s got Alexander Wang taking her to events and using her to promote his clothes, Karl Lagerfeld asking her to perform for private shows and giving her gift iPads and sweaters and shit, and what seems to be the whole of Tumblr up in arms on either side of the fence. She’s called people like Iggy Azalea out on racist ass lyrics like “I’m a runaway slave master” and Kreayshawn for acting like she knows anything about being hood. And then she’s got songs that do all my favorite fucking things—being blatantly fucking forward and nasty (asserting her sexual autonomy as a black womyn in Amerikkka), even making songs about being a darker skinned girl in this environment (see: Licorice.) For me, what’s not to love?

Of course, bitch aint perfect. Like all the fucking things I decide to like in this world, there’s something problematic to come along with it. This I realized by the time I downloaded her whole Fantasea mixtape, to much confusion on my part.

Azealia originally seems too good to be true. Here we have a weird black girl with her off the wall producers, who is openly bisexual (and not for publicity), who is into queer life enough to have seen Paris is Burning and quote it frequently. Who makes songs like Fierce, which will barely make sense to you if you’re not into black gay male/Ball Scene culture, thus excluding straight/white/cis crowds without remorse. She seems like a beacon of hope sent from the QPoC gods in the heavens.

But AB is more half-baked in the queer department than she originally appears. I mean she really obviously doesn’t identify as bisexual for publicity (having alluded to other people pissing her off by doing just that, and being quite verbally expressive in interviews about hating the “do you like girls?” question,) but somehow on the same mixtape Fierce appears on, Azealia says some shit that made me double-take.

Like in “Runnin’” she says: “bitch you better fuck you a white dude/if not, then bitch he better come with the right dick/if not, then bitch you prob’ly know that he like dick.” Which I guess doesn’t read as harshly as it comes across over a sudden beat drop and tone which reads as though a man who likes dick is weaker or less than. I suppose that’s debate-able, and that’s what I thought after I first heard it, I wrote it off as debate-able.

But then I caught her line in the pounding “Fuck Up the Fun”: “I mean I hate to have to see you with your wig off, bitch/I see you tryna come and tryna get on, bitch/You wanna trip, slip, fall, land and lick on dick/and be the same nigga bout to come and lick on this?/Hold up!” These lyrics really made me pause for a minute, that’s pretty much the moment I realized if I wanted to listen to her shit, I’d have to admit something was really problematic here. Azealia does a loooot of praising when it comes to gay men. Tweets about how they are the reason she’s fabulous, making songs like Fierce, reveling in Paris is Burning. But apparently that’s all their good for. Because any man who has ever slept with a man or perhaps identifies as bisexual is automatically beneath her sexually and disgusting, as implied. Not to mention apparently inherently into drag or identifies as trans* as she mentions their “wig” being off and repeatedly using “bitch” to call people womyn as insults. That’s problematic as FUCK.

And then I can’t even listen to “Us” because it opens up ridiculing a girl who “got that Adam’s apple” which basically means “I suspect that you’re not cis and that is laughable to me.”

On top of all of that, AB has said some misogynist things, equating pussy with weak, shit, as much as I liked the Fantasea mixtape it is littered with problems.

So when Banks goes off on people like Angel Haze and Perez Hilton on twitter and says something trans*phobic or use the f-word it doesn’t surprise me at all. Azealia has a lot of problematic and self-contradictory issues that I’ve BEEN wanting her to take care of. As of right now, I still listen to her music because I enjoy the times when she’s just being her little sex-bomb self and not fucking offensive, and when her producers putting in work. But with her being offensive as fuck and deciding to culturally appropriate things like bindis on the regular, I can’t say I stand behind her as a person or belong to the Kunt Brigade. I’m just not about that life. I’m not making excuses for her.

Baby AB has some damn work to do. 

[gif of people clapping redacted by eli]

My feelings in a nutshell.  I just want to see her apologize. People fuck up, that’s life, what’s important is how they react to the people who call them out on their fuck ups and it’s really disheartening seeing her be so flippant about this. But I can’t help but to still enjoy her music. And there’s a part of me that still wants to see her win. She’s just making it really hard.

mymothertongue:

The 5 Girlfriends Society Wants You To Be

hairypitsandtits:

By Chelsea Fagan

1. The “Doesn’t Know She’s Beautiful” Girlfriend

The theory behind this girl, immortalized in the One Direction song, is that she is absolutely gorgeous (makeup and hair styling-free, of course, because she is also the epitome of ~natural beauty~) without being aware of it in the slightest. Because being aware that she is attractive, or being generally confident in her looks, is the secret ingredient to turning even the most tolerable girl into a raving harpy, the Doesn’t Know Girlfriend remains blissfully ignorant. She is the Taylor Swift of aesthetic appeal, always slack-jawed and utterly shocked at the positive attention she receives. It is for the Good Guy Boyfriend to remind her at regular intervals that she is so much more appealing than all of those other wenches who spackle on the foundation with a rusty putty knife, and it is for her to laugh naively and forget all about it.

2. The “One of the Guys” Girlfriend

This girl drinks beer, JUST LIKE A DUDE. She enjoys watching sports, JUST LIKE A DUDE. She plays video games, JUST LIKE A DUDE. Of course, because she is a woman, she remains perfectly attractive and physically feminine while carrying out said activities, as a woman who actually displays traces of deeper masculinity is gRoCe! (Umm, hello, they’re not trying to date a lesbian! #eww) She participates in these manly activities — and supports all of her boyfriend’s friends unequivocally, regardless of behavior — because she “gets it” and is down to just be “one of the guys.” Bear in mind, though, that should her interest in any of these activities be questioned, she is liable to be labeled a “gamer girl” or “geek girl” who is doing this for attention because she has nothing better to do with her time than seek the approval of greasy manchildren. If this fate befalls her, she will have brought it on herself. Shouldn’t have been such a fake bitch.

3. The “Chill As Hell” Girlfriend

This girlfriend doesn’t care if you wanna go to a strip club on a weekly basis! She doesn’t care if you don’t call her back within 48 hours! She doesn’t care if you show up when you say you’re going to! She doesn’t care if you are flirting with other women in front of her! She’s chill, man, she’s not like all of those other uptight bitches with “personal standards” or “reasonable expectations of another human being.” She’s not here to get all in your face about minor shit like meeting her family after two years or being honest with her. She’s got better things to do, such as laugh at your jokes.

4. The “Betty Crocker” Girlfriend

The ability to cook and clean and really take care of the house has been plummeting amongst females since, wow, forever. It’s really refreshing to see a girlfriend like this, one who is dedicated to providing a perfect domestic environment for her boyfriend. She is the true wifey material, not like all of those other hoes who eat ramen noodles and let forks chill in their sink, unwashed, for days at a time. She is the future mother of your well-fed children. Her ability to keep things right on the home front should be the cause for endless mockery of her peers who cannot achieve the same, as it universally falls on the woman to run a home, and any woman who cannot fulfill her destiny may as well just resign herself to a life of cats and vibrators. #duh

5. The “Lady In The Streets, Freak In The Sheets” Girlfriend

Do you want a girl who is going to acquiesce to all of your more depraved sexual demands? Do you want someone who is as discreet as she is smoking hot? Do you want her to wear nothing but demure skirt suits with classy La Perla lingerie underneath, revealing her onion-like layers of increasingly sexual femininity? Well then this is the girl for you! She is here to fulfill all of your fantasies, all while remaining perfectly silent about said sexuality when in public. She doesn’t talk to friends about her sex life, she doesn’t make blue jokes, she doesn’t have an open attitude towards the subject when in mixed company — she is a lady. She has the Madonna/Whore dichotomy down to a finely-tuned science, and she is here to charm your parents at dinner whilst giving you a zesty handy under the table. 

soulofacityy:

i’ve noticed that a lot of people confuse “respects women” with “respects women they consider respectable”.  

velvet-areola:

I am really tired of people in my life being surprised that cosmetology school is hard.

I’m really tired of people seeing cosmetology as trivial, easy, something anyone could do with half a brain and their eyes closed.

It is hard fucking work and there is a lot to know.

My textbook is over 1000 pages. In addition, there are two workbooks to go along with that. 

There are literally thousands of terms we have to memorize that you have never heard of.

In addition to understanding and memorizing all of this information (anatomy, biology, chemistry, bacteriology, sanitation, geometry) and theory, we have to actually translate this knowledge into a tangible (and aesthetically pleasing) product. Now that’s nothing short of talent.

We are artists (haircutting/styling really is scupting; makeup is painting/drawing, etc) AND we are scientists.

But JUST because it is a career that is traditionally considered “feminine,” does not make it worthless. or us.

We are not worthless. We are brilliant at what we do, and—prepare to be shocked—cosmetology is NOT everything we are. We are whole and complete people. We are valuable. and everyone needs a haircut some time.

Now please shut the fuck up.

And tip your stylist.

Everyone who says they were never sexist, racist, or ableist in their WHOLE LIFE is a liar.

deafmuslimpunx:

aboutmaleprivilege:

We are taught sexism, racism, homophobia, and ableism casually from when we are kids. Everyone has done it on the playground and many do it through adulthood, but EVERYONE HAS BEEN LIKE THIS AT SOME POINT. There is no one who is not indoctrinated like that, if not by their parents, then by their school, town, or religion.

As a deaf Muslim woman of color immigrant from a Third World country, I battle racism, sexism, Islamophobia, ableism, xenophobia, and audism everyday. I explore these in my works as an artist, writer, filmmaker, and performer. Yet, even as a person of color, I am NOT exempt from being bigoted toward other groups.

As a child I was:

-racist toward my own people, Indians, Pakistanis, South Asians, because I was taught by Western society to hate and look down at my own people. I thought we were ugly, inferior, backward, primitive, and barbaric. As a child, I wished I was white. I wished I had light brown hair and green eyes because I thought white people were beautiful. I thought white people were civilized, while Indians were backward and dirty. I was ashamed of being Indian, and I was ashamed of being associated with Hindus and Muslims.

-homophobic, because I was taught by my Catholic teacher to be homophobic. When I was 13, I first learned about “homosexuality” but I had no idea what it meant, and I asked my teacher about it. She said that gay men were sinners and engaging in “un-natural” sex.

-transphobic, because I didn’t understand that gender roles were man-made, subjective, and interpretative to different cultures worldwide. Again, I was brainwashed to abide by traditional gender roles by certain (white) people.

-racist toward black people and people of African origin because I was brainwashed by the mainstream media to view them as “thugs,” “criminals,” and “welfare queens.” There weren’t too many black folks around where I lived as a child, so I didn’t have much exposure to black people and black culture(s) until later in high school and university.

-misogynistic - I looked down at girls, I looked down women, I loathed feminity, and I thought women were annoying and nagging, because I was taught internalized misogyny by society and media. We were indirectly taught that feminity was inferior while masculinity was to be admired and copied. We were taught that women were bitches and needed to shut up and be quiet and sit down. I was a hardcore tomboy as a child so I looked down at “feminine” traits and embraced masculine traits. Today, I am a proud Womanist, Muslim Feminist, and I fiercely embrace my feminine traits.

I am probably still homophobic, transphobic, and racist to some extent, but insha’allah, I pray and I hope I will eliminate all traces of bigotry inside my soul.

(Source: all-about-male-privilege)

Why boys don’t read girls (sometimes)

realfakescientist:

themindislimitless:

dancewithmejustforthehellofit:

fralusans-ana-marein:

chasertiff:

shannonhale:

When I do book signings, most of my line is made up of young girls with their mothers, teen girls alone, and mother friend groups. But there’s usually at least one boy with a stack of my books. This boy is anywhere from 8-19, he’s carrying a worn stack of the Books of Bayern, and he’s excited and unashamed to be a fan of those books. As I talk to him, 95% of the time I learn this fact: he is home schooled.

There’s something that happens to our boys in school. Maybe it’s because they’re around so many other boys, and the pressure to be a boy is high. They’re looking around at each other, trying to figure out what it means to be a boy—and often their conclusion is to be “not a girl.” Whatever a girl is, they must be the opposite. So a book written by a girl? With a girl on the cover? Not something a boy should be caught reading.

But something else happens in school too. Without even meaning to perhaps, the adults in the boy’s life are nudging the boy away from “girl” books to “boy” books. When I go on tour and do school visits, sometimes the school will take the girls out of class for my assembly and not invite the boys. I talk about reading and how to fall in love with reading. I talk about storytelling and how to start your own story. I talk about things that aren’t gender-exclusive. But because I’m a girl and there are girls on my covers, often I’m deemed a girl-only author. I wonder, when a boy author goes to those schools with their books with boys on the covers, are the girls left behind? I want to question this practice. Even if no boy ever really would like one of my books, by not inviting them, we’re reinforcing the wrong and often-damaging notion that there’s girls-only stuff and you aren’t allowed to like it.

I hear from teachers that when they read Princess Academy in class (by far the most girlie-sounding of all my books) that the boys initially protest but in the end like it as much as the girls, or as one teacher told me recently, “the boys were even bigger fans than the girls.”

Another staple in my signing line is the family. The mom and daughters get their books signed, and the mom confides in me, “My son reads your books on the sly” or “My son loves your books too but he’s embarrassed to admit it.” Why are they embarrassed? Because we’ve made them that way. We’ve told them in subtle ways that, in order to be a real boy, to be manly, they can’t like anything girls like.

Though sometimes those instructions aren’t subtle at all. Recently at a signing, a family had all my books. The mom had me sign one of them for each of her children. A 10-year-old boy lurked in the back. I’d signed some for all the daughters and there were more books, so I asked the boy, “Would you like me to sign one to you?” The mom said, “Yeah, Isaac, do you want her to put your name in a girl book?” and the sisters all giggled.

As you can imagine, Isaac said no.

This is where I feel called to fight sexism. in these moments where girl things are “stupid” for boys.

I can read comics and like superheroes, but he can’t enjoy books with a lead female or like dolls because THAT’S FOR GIRLS AND IT’S LAME.

No. Girl stuff is not lame.  It’s just as cool as boy stuff, but sexism has put girl things in a category one step below boy things and that is unacceptable.

I have been very lucky in that I never had problems with this (the only book I was ever given a hard time for reading was Piers Anthony’s The Color of Her Panties, which, let’s face it, is a terrible title, regardless of how accurate it may be to the plot of the book), but I remember being very conscious of being the only guy who went up after the panel with Tamora Pierce at Conbust in 2010 to get my copy of Tris’s Book signed.

I’m trying to figure out how I avoided being given a hard time about it by Matthew and company, and I think maybe I just did most of my reading at home? I don’t ever remember being conscious of this, though.

In conclusion, “girl stuff” (read: Tamora Pierce, Anne McCaffrey, et al.) is awesome.

And of that, there’s even fewer people reading books of women of colour. On top of them being girls, they’re also women of colour. I mean first of all, there’s ridiculously few books about women of colour to begin with. And then the ones that do exist get largely ignored.

Also all this commentary is lovely. And oh goodness I didn’t know Shannon Hale had a tumblr.

I don’t think it’s as simple as “boys don’t read most of the time”…it also has to do with environment. admittedly, I went to some terrible public schools; reading was honestly never encouraged, of stuff past the literature book and the short stories for homework assignments. no one pushed you to read, for boys or girls. personally, I didn’t read novels, or general books per say, but I enjoyed going to the school library during lunch rather than lunch, and reading about science (go figure) and history, along with languages/culture/etc….so I developed a fondness for this stuff. however, never the general novel of this or that category. so environment is extremely important as well, not merely boys or girls.

“Misandry doesn’t exist!” said the angry 12 year old female blogger.

strawberreli:

dreamrabbit:

electronicsatellite:

So Tumblr, normally I can take insults pretty well but a recent happening (of about an hour ago) has really made my blood boil.

So I’m walking in town by myself, and a woman who was about 20 was walking in front of me. We turn a few of the same corners, so it’s obvious we’re going to the same place.

But then I realise that she keeps looking over her shoulder at me. And then she sped up a little, clinging to her bag.

It came to my attention she thought I was going to attack her.

To test my theory, I sped up a little. She noticed and sped up even more until she was practically jogging.

Now here’s a few details:

Me: Overweight 17 year old boy wearing shorts and a t-shirt with Cookie Monster on it.

Her: 20 year old woman wearing high heels and has a bag

Time of day: 2pm

Clearly I looked threatening and was going to attack her.

Inspired by the “Racism in America” youtube videos, I decided to have a little fun.

I kept picking up my pace, she kept turning around, noticing I had sped up, and in turn did the same.

Then, after making sure she was looking I suddenly started into a sprint and when I was about 3 foot away from her she screamed.

And then I ran straight past her.

I didn’t get to ser her face as I ran past, but I hoping she was incredibly embarrassed.

In retrospect, I probably should have asked her for her Social Justic blog URL…

Misandry doesn’t exist apparently, isn’t that right Tumblr?

…

Okay. I must be losing my mind, because, when I read this, I could have sworn that the OP really and truly believes that I should feel sorry for him for being stereotyped/victimised.

*reads again, just to make sure*

Wow. That is what I read. Unbelievable. Okay, let’s strip out of this situation your wounded sense of propriety or your offence at being so stereotyped, or whatever it was that you felt justified your actions and look at this situation neutrally: You noticed that a woman, through no fault of your own, was acting in manner that suggested she was afraid of you.

Now, there were lots of different things you could have done in this situation. You could have smiled and waved to show her that you could see her looking at you and to appear less threatening, all at once. You could have fell back a step or two so she would feel more comfortable. You could have crossed the street. You could have, in a no-doubt sincere fit of over-compensation, channelled your internal Martin Freeman. If you were truly offended, you could have approached her at that point and asked her why she felt threatened. Or you could have done nothing at all, bit your lip, and simply ignored it. Any one of those actions would have been a kinder and more human thing than what you actually did.

Because, instead, when you saw a frightened woman you did everything you could to make her more afraid. You happily played up to the predator stereotype you claim to abhor and acted in as intentionally menacing a way as you could, to, in your own words, “have a little fun” with her. You carried on to such a point, that when you ran past her, again, according to your own description, as you drew close she literally screamed with fear and panic.

And then you came online to complain about how you had been unfairly stereotyped and victimised? Seriously?

Let’s make something perfectly clear here: You were angry because you felt like you were being unfairly pre-judged. She was terrified because she thought she might be hurt or worse. Both are unpleasant things to feel, but one emotion, hers, is far, far worse than the other and you made it worse, deliberately. Make no mistake, what you did here was utterly unacceptable. Your actions were in no way just and you were not a victim here. You lost any right to claim any morality in your action when you saw that another human being was afraid of you and decided to make that person more afraid. You should be ashamed of yourself and deciding if that is the kind of man you want to be, not coming online to tell other people how bad your day was and trying to get them to justify your abhorrent behaviour.

~DreamR

I read the title and was prepared to read a post where I could laugh at some stupid MRA theory and continue down my dash, but as I read it, holy FUCK you are a doucher. And I’m glad for the above commentary because I am not nearly as polite or as eloquent as them.

You decided to “have a little fun” and scare the shit out of someone who was VERY OBVIOUSLY threatened by you. Like. What? How does that help you at all? Does it make her less afraid of you? Of men? Of threats? Did you hope to prove some point? Because the only point you proved was that she was RIGHT to mistrust you and that she was RIGHT to be scared of you.

Fuck, no matter the gender, if someone is taking all the turns I am and not staying a few steps back you better believe I turn around and ask them what they fuck they’re doing.

Just.

your

incredible

lack of intelligence

astounds me

In the past 24 hours, my mom and sister have made unkind/bigoted/offensive comments about:

• intersex folks
• physically disabled folks
• mentally disabled folks
• queer folks
• trans* folks
• Black folks
• Latin@ folks
• Muslim folks
• people who have been in abusive relationships

does anyone have a spare closet/futon/floor I can move in to?
Ya Allah.