live, laugh, love on We Heart It. http://weheartit.com/entry/45827940/via/dkkisses
A Jar Full of Delight
how to fight by Captain Kirk (ft. his best pupil)
I love this SO MUCH.
Truly, he is grace incarnate.
PILLOW ATTACK! Also, BUTT ATTACK!
(Source: orcses)
Family Life According to the Brotherhood
Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood is committed to upholding patriarchal and traditional values around a woman’s place in society, and many Egyptian women need no convincing.
“ A woman’s worst nightmare? That’s pretty easy. Novelist Margaret Atwood writes that when she asked a male friend why men feel threatened by women, he answered, “They are afraid women will laugh at them.” When she asked a group of women why they feel threatened by men, they said, “We’re afraid of being killed.
http://www.pbs.org/kued/nosafeplace/articles/nightmare.html (via alullaby)
That sums it up
[trigger warning for the commentary below]
(via erikawithac)
This reminds me of a discussion we had in school, and one girl was talking about living in fear of her safety because she is a girl, and this guy chimed in and was all “It’s hard for guys too! I’m so awkward around girls! It’s embarrassing!” Yeah, not the same thing, exactly?
(via tulletulle)
Wow.
(via kittencoaster)
This reminds me of an article about online (heterosexual) dating that I read a while ago. It listed men’s and women’s worst fears about meeting someone from online. The highest ranked fear that men had was that their date would be fat, whereas the highest ranked fear that women had was that their date would turn out to be violent and kill them.
I think that says a lot.
(via kaitg)
Its interesting also that these fears sit subconsciously until woman are asked to exams their responses to men. We women will operate with this fear in mind, the way we protect ourselves, make sure our friends know where we are when we go on a date, words that we use while interacting with men, all in hopes they will not kill us, but simultaneously love us.
I think bell hooks made a point about this in her series on love. something along the lines of how can women hope to love and receive love from men when at the foundation of our relationships there is this strong fear of men. you can’t build true trust when your foundation is crumbling under you.
the scariest part is, once you recognize this fear, and face it, how do you address it when there is evidence of “good” men abusing, hurting, and killing women everyday?
(via becomingchichi)
I was in my early 20’s when one of my homegirls broke this down for me.
I was in a broken relationship, and one of the things was that bugged me at the time was that the girlfriend at the time would freak out whenever I got angry - I never yelled, never throw or hit things, mostly, I just needed some time to cool out.
“Why does she get scared when I’m angry? I’d never hit her!”
“But she doesn’t KNOW that. She can’t assume that. Look at how many dudes are out there pulling shit.”
And that stuck with me for a hot minute. The relationship was broken on so many levels anyway, but that fact still remains, as a man, I can’t fault women for assuming the worst in order to protect themselves, especially how the world’s patriarchy and misogyny rolls.
(via bankuei)
My brain knows that my husband won’t hit me. Really, the logical part of me totally gets that. But when we’re arguing he has to stay on the other side of the room & not yell too loud because my fight or flight instincts have 25+ years of being hard wired that loud = violent & our 11 year relationship isn’t long enough to undo that.
(via karnythia)
I’ve had continual discussions with Tchy about this, and I don’t expect to stop. It’s fair to say that there’s no one in the world that I trust more, and he has been extremely careful with me, but… the fact remains that he leans quite a bit towards the masculine, and this means that that fear is always there. The news of transmasculine folks abusing/raping people doesn’t help that fear any. :(
I’m learning not to apologize for it. It’s not my fault (nor, really, is it his) that I’m scared of dude-type people. But it’s always there. Which is another reason why I get so pissed off when trans men try to make transmisogyny about them.
(via kiriamaya)
men, read all of this please. including the commentary. esp if you consider yourself a Nice Guy.
(via static-nonsense)
This is an incredible thread of responses. I’ve seen this quote before, but not the dialogue that built up around it. The part about loud=violent hits home particularly hard for me. I am terrified of getting into irl arguments with men, especially when they get loud. It’s always going to sit in the pit of my stomach.
(via mizbingley)
That part resonates for me too, although from a completely different angle. Despite being more terrified of sexual violence than I am of anything other than my own brain, I do not hesitate to yell, confront, get up in the face of, threaten, even hit men twice my size and many times my strength. Faced with a threat of violence from men, I will either imply or state “I dare you to.”
I also, as previously established on this blog, have a death wish.
To me, that encapsulates everything about the violence, especially sexual violence, coded into relationships between men and women in our society: for a woman to assert herself in the face of maleness may require the woman in question (such as me) to be perpetually suicidal.
(via 14kgoldnyc)
Reblogging for commentary. I have been frightened and scared by men being loud with me, even if I don’t think they’ll be violent. Like people have said above, it’s just a latent response in your brain to fear violence from men.
I went out to dinner with someone a couple of weeks ago (LONG story, was supposed to be a group dinner but it ended up just being me & a strange man) and I told him I blogged about feminism and politics, and he went off on me. He told me feelings were bullshit and women just wanted special privileges, and then he said, “Women don’t give men enough credit for not being violent psychopaths. That’s what we are, deep down. We want to rape and pillage, and we don’t, and women don’t give us enough credit for that.” I burst into tears. That shit was terrifying.
(via stfuconservatives)
(via stfuconservatives)
The riots also offered a glimpse into how photographs can be used out of context:
‘Sir: In last week’s article about the poll-tax riot in Trafalgar Square (‘THE MOB’S BRIEF RULE’, 7 April) there is a large photograph labelled ‘A West End shopper argues with a protester’. The woman in the photograph is me, and I thought you might like to know the true story behind the picture.
I was on my way to the theatre, with my husband. As we walked down Regent Street at about 6.30pm, the windows were intact and there was a large, cheerful, noisy group of poll-tax protesters walking up from Piccadilly Circus. We saw ordinary uniformed police walking alongside, on the pavement, keeping a low profile. The atmosphere was changed dramatically in moments when a fast-walking, threatening group of riot-squad police appeared.
We walked on to the top of Haymarket, where the atmosphere was more tense and more protesters were streaming up Haymarket from the Trafalgar Square end. Suddenly a group of mounted police charged at full gallop into the rear of the group of protesters, scattering them, passers-by and us and creating panic. People screamed and some fell. Next to me and my husband another group of riot-squad appeared, in a most intimidating manner.
The next thing that happened is what horrified me most. Four of the riot-squad police grabbed a young girl of 18 or 19 for no reason and forced her in a brutal manner on to the crowd-control railings, with her throat across the top of the railings. Her young male companion was frantically trying to reach her and was being held back by one riot-squad policeman. In your photograph I was urging the boy to calm down or he might be arrested; he was telling me that the person being held down across the railings was his girlfriend.
My husband remonstrated with the riot-squad policeman holding the boy, and I shouted at the four riot-squad men to let the girl go as they were obviously hurting her. To my surprise, they did let her go – it was almost as if they did not know what they were doing.
The riot-squad policemen involved in this incident were not wearing any form of identification. Their epaulettes were unbuttoned and flapping loose; I lifted them on two men and neither had any numbers on. There was a sergeant with them, who was numbered and my husband asked why his men wore no identifying numbers. The sergeant replied that it did not matter as he knew who the men were. We are a middle-aged suburban couple who now feel more intimidated by the Metropolitan police than by a mob. If we feel so angry, how on earth did the young hot-heads at the rally feel?’
Mrs R.A. Sare, Northwood, Middlessex Source
BOOM.
(via stfuconservatives)
So this just popped up on my facebook feed.
Former First Lady Barbara Bush read to some kids at a hospital, and gave one of them a fist bump. My conservative friends thought this was just totes adorbs.
Meanwhile, I was having flashbacks to the 2008 presidential election when Prez Obama fist-bumped Mrs. Obama, and the news media went fucking nuts and called it a “terrorist fist jab”.
TL;DR:
Black couple running for President give celebratory fist bump; are seen as terrorists and gangstas.
Old white woman gives sick child a fist bump; is seen as adorable and “classy”.
(Yeah, classy.)
Hm.
(via stfuconservatives)
Ernesto's Starship: Presidential Idol
Dear @BarackObama and @MittRomney,
It’s my feeling that to be a great president one must be a great actor. In this respect @BarackObama you are correct; a president must be a good storyteller. With this in mind, I feel it important that we as a nation add a new dimension of substance to all the…
Ernesto's Starship: Dear @ariannahuff and @HuffingtonpostI’m terribly disturbed by a...
Dear @ariannahuff and @Huffingtonpost
I’m terribly disturbed by a video I found on the Huffpo today.
Im disturbed for a number of reasons.
The post in question is the execution video of an Afghani woman charged with adultery. She is executed by her accusers -that bastion of enlightenment- The…
Using the Legacy of Muslim Women Leaders to Empower
Sumiyyah bint Khabbat: one of the first people to believe in the monotheistic message concerning the One God of Abraham, Jacob and Joseph which was being propagated by the Prophet Mohammed. She did not enjoy the benefit of wealth or political stature. In fact, she lived with her husband and son under the control of an influential pagan family.
As such, her then pagan owners demanded she renounce her newfound faith and she refused. As a result she was systematically tortured and eventually killed by a spear through her heart. The story of Sumiyyah’s sacrifice is well known to Muslims and undermines misconceptions — in the East and the West — of women as weak beings.
We should perhaps reflect upon Ramlah Umme Salim whom the Prophet Muhammad stationed with the army during the early Muslim battles against the Arab pagans. She helped supply water to the soldiers and nursed the wounded. In this manner, she participated in the Battles of Uhud and Khyber.
Further, Nusayba Umme Amara is credited with being the first female Muslim soldier during the time of the Prophet Muhammad. Nusayba fought in the Battles of Uhud, Hunain, Yamama and Hudaibiyah. Initially, she accompanied the Prophet Muhammad to battle to provide assistance in a similar manner as Aisha and Ramlah, described above.
However, during the Battle of Uhud, the Prophet Muhammad’s archers deserted their posts. In response, Nusayba physically defended him with her own sword. In a famous tradition Prophet Muhammad is recorded as saying that when he turned to his left, he saw Nusayba; when he turned to his right, he saw Nusayba. She in fact sustained a deep wound to her shoulder as a result of combat in that battle.
During the governance of the first Caliph, Abu Bakr, Nusayba fought alongside her son in the Battle of Yamama where she lost one of her hands in addition to receiving 12 wounds. Nusayba’s contribution to Islamic history as a capable female soldier on the battlefield is in stark contradistinction to patriarchal assertions that a Muslim woman’s sole rightful place is exclusively within the confines of her home.
Finally one would be remiss to ignore Shafa Bint Adwiya who was an intelligent woman skilled in politics and respected for her wisdom (some 1500 years ago). Prior to converting to Islam, she used to administer medical treatment to patients. Following her conversion, she asked the Prophet Muhammad if she could continue and he encouraged her to do so. The Prophet Muhammad also asked Shafa to teach one of his wives how to read and write.
Thus time and again, the Prophetic position on Muslim women’s education and professional contributions was a positive one. This lesson is particularly relevant for the female population of particular Muslim countries where low literacy rates and poverty continue to be a problem. The Prophetic model also stands in contradistinction to contemporary messaging by certain minority extremist groups against the education of women.
Shafa’s skills were not limited to teaching and medicine exclusively. The second Caliph Umar ibn Khattab, who is accorded great deference in Islamic tradition, highly valued Shafa’s opinion and consulted with her.
