Feministe hosted an interview with a male “feminist” and former sexual predator who’s publicly admitted to making an attempt on his ex-lover’s life (for her own good, apparently). When multiple people point out that he’s not a good dude, Clarisse Thorn decides to close the comments. And instead of apologizing, she chides Feministe’s readership for calling him a narcissistic sociopath… because that’s irresponsible.
I know Feministe is awful, especially lately, but I found this particularly disturbing.
Thank god someone else is pissed off about this. The “ugliness of the tone” for the love of god, the “ugliness of the tone” of the responses to a man who posits himself as a feminist authority while also admitting he tried to murder his girlfriend.
I remember reading something by hugo schwyzer once in passing and thinking it was pretty basic but he was probably going to get huge accolades for saying it while white and male, since the gist of it was “look at me saying this while being a dude!”
Now I have read this and I have a headache. (Heavy trigger warning on that link for abuse, implied sexual assault, and a self-proclaimed feminist man trying to murder his unconscious girlfriend and make it look like a suicide pact.)
How Not To Be A Feminist Man: try to murder your unconscious ex-girlfriend, then write an article years later about how it’s all water under the bridge now in order to boost your credibility as a “self-made feminist man” who pulled himself out of drug addiction and murderousness by his bootstraps so why can’t we all just move on now.
If we teach women that there are only certain ways they may acceptably behave, we should not be surprised when they behave in those ways.
And we should not be surprised when they behave these ways during attempted or completed rapes.
Women who are taught not to speak up too loudly or too forcefully or too adamantly or too demandingly are not going to shout “NO” at the top of their goddamn lungs just because some guy is getting uncomfortably close.
Women who are taught not to keep arguing are not going to keep saying “NO.”
Women who are taught that their needs and desires are not to be trusted, are fickle and wrong and are not to be interpreted by the woman herself, are not going to know how to argue with “but you liked kissing, I just thought…”
Women who are taught that physical confrontations make them look crazy will not start hitting, kicking, and screaming until it’s too late, if they do at all.
Women who are taught that a display of their emotional state will have them labeled hysterical and crazy (which is how their perception of events will be discounted) will not be willing to run from a room disheveled and screaming and crying.
Women who are taught that certain established boundaries are frowned upon as too rigid and unnecessary are going to find themselves in situations that move further faster before they realize that their first impression was right, and they are in a dangerous room with a dangerous person.
Women who are taught that refusing to flirt back results in an immediately hostile environment will continue to unwillingly and unhappily flirt with somebody who is invading their space and giving them creep alerts.
People wonder why women don’t “fight back,” but they don’t wonder about it when women back down in arguments, are interrupted, purposefully lower and modulate their voices to express less emotion, make obvious signals that they are uninterested in conversation or being in closer physical proximity and are ignored. They don’t wonder about all those daily social interactions in which women are quieter, ignored, or invisible, because those social interactions seem normal. They seem normal to women, and they seem normal to men, because we were all raised in the same cultural pond, drinking the same Kool-Aid.
And then, all of a sudden, when women are raped, all these natural and invisible social interactions become evidence that the woman wasn’t truly raped. Because she didn’t fight back, or yell loudly, or run, or kick, or punch. She let him into her room when it was obvious what he wanted. She flirted with him, she kissed him. She stopped saying no, after a while.
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Harriet J on Another post about rape (via archenemies)
Oh my god, this. All of this.
(via one-bite-at-a-time)
(via xlivvielockex)
The Doctor is Pawnee’s Doctor. And he’s the most fantastic doctor in the world!
(Source: flapperorslapper, via queenofattolia)
Christmas Wishes:
A Spuffy photoset from my fav Spuffy-centric ep(or so I see it as) [1/2] for readytobestrong
Favourite Spuffy Moments » 5x07 - Fool for Love
Spike: Is there anything I can do?I’ve been in a ‘spill my Spuffy guts out’ mood lately so..
My love for this scene knows no boundaries! The fact that she has offended him so deeply, the fact that he has just spent the last few hours reliving his glory days, when he slayed Slayers(!!), and the very obvious fact that he’s carrying a shot run, all make me love and appreciate the look on Spike’s face so much more. Because anyone who thinks he was ever actually able to kill her is not watching this right. Because the sorrow on HER face cripples HIM! Because at the sight of her tears he forgets all about him pride and his bleeding heart. Because he has always been love’s bitch and he’s man enough to admit it. So he asks what’s wrong and sits next to her and asks if there’s anything he can do and the awkward pat on the back is so moving because it shows how much NOT used to this Spike is. He hasn’t had to deal with a human in pain(who he doesn’t actually want to be in pain) for so long that he doesn’t have the slightest idea what to do. But he tried anyway! And that’s the beauty of it. That he will just head first into the unknown for her. He will do what he has never done. He will try. And if he fails he will try again. And if he can’t figure out what else to do he will still just stay by her side. Silently letting her know that he’s always there. If she even needs him and if she doesn’t. He won’t be the one to leave her.
(Source: scooby-gang, via effulgentcolors)
Meanwhile the real reason that you shouldn’t punish Bob for queerness is because there’s nothing wrong with it!"
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Social Justice League - Fauxgress Watch: Born This Way. (via anotherlgbttumblr)
(via fuckyeahradicalquotes)
Obit of the Day: Above It All
Pan Am made an interesting hire in 1948. Their newest stewardess (they were not yet “flight attendants”) was Betty Haas. Ms. Haas was the first in her position to have ever logged over 1,000 hours in a cockpit. She had more experience flying planes than some of the pilots in the airline, but the idea of a woman flying a commercial plane was unthinkable.
Ms. Haas, who became Mrs. Haas Pfister in the 1950s, began flying when she was 19, sneaking her first flight after a local air show in Vermont. When World War II erupted, Haas Pfister was qualified to join the Air Force’s female branch, Women Airforce Service Pilots, or WASPs. Women replaced men who were needed in combat, flying planes to various location in the U.S. and internationally and sometimes dragging aerial targets across the sky for artillery practice.
While at Pan Am, Haas Pfister rebuilt her own plane, “Galloping Gertie,” and became a fixture at air shows and races, winning two All Women’s International Air Races. In 1994 she was named an Elder Statesman of Aviation by the National Aeronautical Association, and in 2010 she and other surviving WASPs were awarded the Congressional Gold Medal.
Mrs. Haas Pfister died at the age of 90.
(Image of Betty Haas Pfister cleaning “Galloping Gertie” is courtesy of the Boston Globe.)
(via remembertheladies)
