bluandorange:

Tw: discussion of Sexual Assault, ‘Real Men’ bullshit

typette:

aburningrose:

fuckmegentlywithawinonaryder:

Omg you need to WATCH THIS TED TALK RIGHT NOW

It’s (almost entierly non-problematic) feminist: yes

It talks about social quests given to children through kid’s movies and the whole Magical Quest trope: yes

It talks about raising boys to respect women in a way that’s not just chivarly: yes

It’s written by a man: yes

Watch, listen and learn, because this guy knows what he’s talking about. It’s important to teach the right lessons to both girls and boys.

This is fantastic, funny, and extremely true. Both girls and boys need to learn together that they’re equal, not just “girls can be powerful” and “boys can be powerful”. take a sec to watch this, dashboard!

“…the story where the boy is a hero, who defeats the villain through violence, and collects his reward, which is a woman with no friends and who doesn’t speak.”

WHAT A GOOD LINE THOUGH

The stories we tell our children are important.

(via tworefined)

A dwarf primer for those of us who (like me) unaccountably failed to memorise all 6 zillion pages of the Silmarillion.  I’d like to take this opportunity to rattle on about my private beliefs on the dwarves’ private parts.

As written, Middle Earth is a total sausage festival, probably a product of Tolkien’s day and age.  However, being me, and knowing that Khuzdul only has the one pronoun, I prefer to imagine that some of the dwarves in Thorin’s band are actually female, though this fact passes unnoticed by humans and hobbits, and doesn’t matter to the dwarves themselves.

Working within the world of the Hobbit movie, we can see that dwarf women tend to have daintier noses and finer beards than dwarf dudes: 

However, it should be noted that these portraits were intended as character development for dwarves living in Erebor, during a golden age of peace and leisure. They had the free time and resources to wear jewels and fancy clothing.  These dwarves could well be described as “ladies.”  The dwarves in Thorin’s band are warriors.  They’ve traveled a long way, and know that they have a lot further to go.  Their clothing was chosen for its practical and hard-wearing nature (though many of them have still found time to braid their hair and beards all nicely).  The differences between males and females in this military context are reduced, in much the same way that contemporary male and female military uniforms are similar.  What we’re seeing here are fatigues, not courtly couture or even dress blues.  

So (you may or may not ask), which dwarves do I believe to be female?  I’m not saying they’re “ladies,” or even “women,” because Middle Earth dwarvish gender is clearly a very different phenomenon to USA human gender.  I’m going to keep using male pronouns for them, because that’s how they refer to each other.  

First and foremost, Thorin is female.  Look at his wee nose and tiny beard, compared to those other dwarves! I admit to being strongly influenced by HobbitDragon’s description of what he looks like naked.  It’s a good description.  Next up, Dori is also on my list of dwarves with an XX karyotype.  He has a similarly small beard, and has spent a lot of time on his nifty hairstyle, possibly a nod to the femininity that he can’t indulge on the road.  Bombur has no beard at all; I’m going to claim him as female, even with his expansive nose.  Finally, I’m going to say that Oin is female, although his beard is quite bushy.  He’s a midwife.  There are some medical specialties where the patients will insist that the doctor have in-person experience and lots of it; that is one of them.  Of course, if Oin is female and has a big beard, that raises questions about my premise that dwarf women in general have small beards.  There may be more females in the party than I thought.

I’ve deliberately omitted Fili and Kili from this list.  Their beards aren’t up to much, and they got the small noses, but their ages work out to the human equivalent of mid-teens.  They haven’t even got all their permanent teeth, let alone their mature secondary sex characteristics.  Either or both might or might not be female; who am I to say?

Apart from the massive geek who’s gone about assigning sexes to all the other goddamn dwarves, that is.

audreyaudrey:

the single greatest thing on the internet 

Huh.  ”Dating a femme”?  I agree with everything else this says, but is Kermit femme?  I mean, he’s not manly-man he-man BUTCH, but nor is he markedly feminine.  To my way of thinking, he’s just a regular guy, if a frog.  It’s funny how there is no word in our culture to describe this non-performative, “normal” gender presentation.  

How about we make up new genders, based on Muppets.  Everyone will know what we mean.  My gender presentation, at least at work, is very Kermit.  At home, as you all know, my gender is definitely Gonzo.

(via skoothsmin)

eeewok:

Read this book!

“The GENDER book is a fun, colorful, community-based resource, which illustrates the beautiful diversity of gender - a sort of gender 101 for anyone and everyone.”

www.thegenderbook.com

I’m going to get this once it’s published properly.  When I was 12, my mama gave me a book called “What’s Happening To My Body, For Girls.”  It was a fine resource but didn’t cover a lot of things.  I figure I’ll give this to Mama to sort of backfill some of the gaps.

(via squishysound)

artoftransliness:

Although the title is absolutely ridiculous, the Wall Street Journal does a profile on neuroscientist Ben Barres.

Ben Barres Ph.D. is spoken of highly in the article, “Being first a female scientist and then a male scientist has given Prof. Barres a unique perspective on the debate over why women are so rare at the highest levels of academic science and math: He has experienced personally how each is treated by colleagues, mentors and rivals.

Based on those experiences, as well as research on gender differences, Prof. Barres begs to differ with what he calls “the Larry Summers Hypothesis,” named for the former Harvard president who attributed the paucity of top women scientists to lack of “intrinsic aptitude.” In a commentary in today’s issue of the journal Nature, he writes that “the reason women are not advancing [in science] is discrimination” and the “Summers Hypothesis amounts to nothing more than blaming the victim.”

This article is actually pretty great - read it!

Good article, and I can offer independent confirmation of Professor Barre’s hypothesis.  But, seriously, Wall Street Journal: you call widespread, entrenched discrimination a “spat?” Possibly I’ve just been huffing the socialjusticesally fumes, but… do TRY to get a clue, right?

coelasquid:

tastyprawn:

coelasquid:

Remember that in this culture, “skinny” was code for “has small boobs”. The coveted waistline of the era was still around 24 inches, which equates to a modern day size 0. Thicker waists were still considered “fat” and undesirable. As much as people post pictures of Marilyn Monroe and bemoan how much things have changed, (according to her dressmaker) her measurements fluctuated between 35-22-35 and 37-23-36. A 22 inch waist is smaller than a modern size 0.

I hate it when people claim Marilyn Monroe was a modern U.S. size 14 (which is around 39-31.5-42.5). Who in their right mind thinks that Marilyn looks larger than me?

A lot of people don’t realize that women’s clothing has been “vanity sized” over the ages, as in the numbers have all been bumped up to compensate for expanding waistlines. Due to her wide hips and ample bust, Monroe was a ye olde size 8-10. People hear “size 10”, think it reflects a modern size 10, spread the story, and embellish it to even more unrealistic proportions. By today’s standards, hips and chest considered, she would have been a size 5.

Speaking as a man: women’s clothing measurements are, and always have been, BATSHIT INSANE.  They correspond to no known physical measurement, and they act as though all of the multifarious data points on the human frame vary in lockstep consistency with one another.  A shoulder size of X does not imply a bust size of Y!  A neck circumference of B does not imply a torso length of C!  Moreover, the alleged “sizes” are not consistent across manufacturers!  

I’m glad I can grab, say, a 15.5/33 shirt and just buy it in the reasonable expectation that it will fit.  I feel that women should demand equal treatment. 

I understand that men typically get better deals on cars than women, and I hate that.  I’m wondering what kind of deal I can swing by deliberately confusing the dealer as to my gender, then getting all huffy and threatening to walk off the lot following the inevitable “Sir, I mean ma’am, I mean… umm…”

Is that wrong?

Commenter #51

I’m posting this because it’s so rare for commenters on stuff.co.nz to say something so succinct and so perfect.

Warning: don’t read other comments on the article I’ve linked to, unless of course you want to experience extreme rage and hatred. 

(via lavenderlabia)

I want to tweak this argument a little bit: men get hit with sexism all the time- MAINLY FROM OTHER MEN. Men are the primary perpetrators of violence against men, the main source of fear and oppression.  Sometimes you get alpha males oppressing the “lesser” men, but often it’s just guys beating up on each other.  They constantly police each others’ manhood, largely by comparing one another to the hated and feared Other, which is to say, women.  A lot of the problems of anti-man sexism can be resolved by addressing anti-woman sexism.  Yeah, we’re going to have to give up some privilege to get it done.  Good.

(via goddamnitprotoman)

I finally made it in to see the original manuscript of Frankenstein at the NYPL.  They only have two pages open, but they are a good two pages: the one in which the Monster is brought to life, and the one in which Frankenstein confronts his creation on the Alpine glaciers above Switzerland. I wish that they had my favourite passage- the one in which the Monster discovers the moon, fire, and finally himself.  However, I’m content with the passages that they chose.

I have to admit, I go into manuscripts looking for Something.  Some hint of the author’s original intent, some clue as to the nature of her soul.  I think I found it.  In the passage where Frankenstein is contemplating his newly-animated creation, the finished version reads “… I had selected his features as beautiful.”  In the manuscript, Shelley had originally written “handsome.”  This word was struck out, replaced with “beautiful,” which was struck out, replaced with “handsome” again, struck out again, “beautiful” again, not struck out, and a baffling third “handsome,” also struck out.  I could, and might, write an entire paper on the tension over the Monster’s gender just here.  

Victor Frankenstein is still a whiny little coward who can’t finish what he starts, though.

jathis:

teratomarty:

jathis:

teratomarty:

darziel:

stfuconservatives:

An article from the SPLC about the reality of the Men’s Rights movement. (thanks to reader jron for linking it to me)

-Jess

Read this.

In related news: Pope Catholic, Bear Shits In Woods

This is why I laughed at that DA pic someone drew of some guy with a bloody nose and black eye looking at a card for an abuse help hotline, claiming that he couldn’t call it because it’s only for women and shit.

I don’t doubt that there are men who get slapped around and abused by women but I do doubt people’s claims that these same men have no one to turn to.

Actually, just here, I’m going to argue.  I want to state up front that most of these purported “men’s rights” talking points are utter bullshit, and I’m not about to go through them point-by-point to separate fact from fiction.  But:

However the statistics shake down, EVEN IF men suffer physical abuse by their partners at a much lower rate than women, it is still profoundly isolating and disempowering to get beat up by the one person who allegedly loves you best in the world.  Men who get beat on don’t report the abuse, and they often get told to “man the fuck up” if they do.  This is a place where sexism genuinely harms men: they don’t have access to support systems because our culture presumes that any man, every man, is going to respond to violence with violence, and shouldn’t care about the emotional implications.

So, a dose of equality, for men, women, and everyone else: Get hit? Get out.  Also, if a friend tells you hir lover is smacking hir around, take hir seriously and offer to let hir crash on your couch while ze files a restraining order.

What does the ‘ze’ mean?

“Hir” and “ze” are gender-neutral pronouns, objective and subjective, respectively, standing in for “him/her” and “she/he.”

From the IndieBound review: “As… gay sexual culture morphs into ‘straight-acting dudes hangin’ out,’ what are the possibilities for a defiant faggotry that challenges the assimilationist norms of a corporate-cozy lifestyle?”

What a title! I am going to read the Hell out of this book.  In my mind, the main problem facing “real men” at this time is the fact that “real men” doesn’t have much of a definition apart from “not women” and “not faggots.”*  Guys go around busting their asses to prove they’re not sissy, but what’s so bad about being sissy, anyway? 

I’m in kind of an odd place, vis-a-vis masculinity.  I’m a trans guy, but not massively, roaringly masculine.  I’m a queer guy, but not snappingly, swangan’ly feminine.  I’m just kind of a guy.  I’m told my gender expression would have been right at home circa 1954, when it was perfectly acceptable for a man to declare things “keen” and “nifty.”  And I certainly didn’t go to all the hard work of shedding feminine gender expectations just to jump into another, almost equally restrictive set.

To my mind, that’s the real arena of mens’ liberation at present: not the opposite of feminism like those asshat “men’s rights activists,” but the converse of feminism, the idea that if women can wear trousers and earn money, men can wear dresses and have emotions other than utter rage.  My own wardrobe and emotional range are rather uninteresting, but I’m not going to stop others from doing as they please.

*With the exception of Commander Badass from The Punchline Is Machismo.  He doesn’t have to prove anything to anyone, and he knows it.

sporkbot:

andyouhavetogivethemhope:

“Men-ups” by Clickandclash on Flickr.

HA HA I LOVE THIS.

Brb, hanging these in my locker.