Girlhood is shaking up how we view the French:
Four teenage girls lip-sync to Rihanna’s hit Diamonds in a hotel room, perfectly choreographed, perfectly lit. Even before the official UK release of Girlhood (Bande des Filles), which follows a girl’s teenage journey in Paris’s rough outskirts, this scene has become a major talking point. Why? Perhaps because, in under three minutes, it depicts a celebration of female friendship, strength, beauty and adolescence that is as universal as it is un-stereotypically French; these are four black girls, in a film with an all-black cast, representing a level of attention for non-white characters that is unprecedented in the history of Gallic cinema – let alone in the exclusive French arthouse sector.
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How George Takei helped stop that horrible auction of Japanese-American property we talked about a few weeks back:
As word of the Rago auction spread weeks ago, Japanese American groups around the country pushed back in emails and petitions. A Facebook page, Japanese American History: NOT for Sale, had garnered 6,200 followers before the auction was set to take place.
Takei’s potential influence on social media, including more than 8.5 million Facebook followers, didn’t hurt.
“This collection wouldn’t be coming to JANM if it weren’t for the intervention and passion of George Takei,” Kimura said. “He stepped in to ask Rago that the auction be canceled, and, I mean, who can say no to George?”
Rago said the collection’s personal and historical significance took his company by surprise.
“Once it became evident that the community felt it would be disrespectful to bring this material to auction, we realized we had to pull this lot from the sale,” he said.
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It’s Nikki Callahan’s birthday!!!! Shower her with your love and best wishes! Nikki, you are the reason I can go to the gym without worrying that my broken links and copious errors will go uncorrected in my absence, and everything you write for us is smart and funny and thoughtful, and I cherish you.
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While we’re shouting out Toasties, our own lovely @missellabell has finished her dissertation, so all of you should make impressed and congratulatory noises. I watched one of my best friends finish hers, and it was…a hellscape. My husband says that completing a dissertation is not merely an intellectual task, it becomes acutely physical towards the end, the transition occuring once one accepts it merely needs to be finished and gives up on doing it particularly brilliantly. WELL DONE. Yours is brilliant as well as finished, I have no doubt.
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8 Minutes is exploitative nonsense! WHO WOULD HAVE GUESSED?
“I know what we do is not the most legal thing, but this is my job,” another sex worker who asked to be called Jazzy told BuzzFeed News. She said she was happy with her pimp, who essentially fired her after he saw the broadcast. She also said she requested that her face be blurred, and it was not.
Gina said the production team did not offer face-blurring as an option. “No, they didn’t offer that. I thought that’s what was gonna happen. I would’ve preferred that,” she said.
8 Minutes also did not keep the sex workers’ information particularly discreet: It took less than an hour for this reporter to find contact information for three women using only the information A&E broadcast on television.
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I really liked Emily Nussbaum on Amy Schumer:
There’s nothing new about comedy with a feminist bent: one of my most prized possessions is a humor collection called “Titters,” whose cover features a busty woman in a tight T-shirt. Published in 1976, and edited by the few female writers of “Saturday Night Live,” it was the “first collection of humor by women,” with contributors ranging from Phyllis Diller to a pre-Huffington Arianna Stassinopoulos. Like many classic humor anthologies, it’s largely dated and dumb, aside from some bits that are hilariously mean. (If you think feminist infighting is new, check out the parody of Nora Ephron’s “small breasts” essay, which turns that body part into “sharp elbows.”) But it’s a useful relic of a time when feminists were libelled as humorless, a smear that persists. The truth is, the madcap polemicists of the seventies, from Bella Abzug to Valerie Solanas, with her notorious man-hating “SCUM Manifesto,” were often outrageously funny, using gonzo cracks to express their anger. Anti-feminists have always disguised their insults as jokes. (“Can’t you take a joke?”) But a joke can be the slickest response: an expression of savoir-faire in the face of hatred.
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Charlotte Shane wants you (well, men) to be better at kissing:
As a sex worker who has done in-person work for a decade, I’ve kissed a lot of frogs. So many, in fact, that I have a theory about why call girls of old had the “no kissing” rule, a rule that is unfortunately uncommon among contemporary escorts: It’s not because kissing is more intimate than other acts, but because it’s uniquely cruel to have to endure bad kissing. And bad kissing is a guarantee.
Now before you try to claim every man who’s ever paid for some sexual service must obviously be a bad kisser, let me assure you that I’ve kissed off the clock as well. This epidemic is not confined to age or income brackets or whatever other categories into which one might like to slot sex consumers. I think it’s safe to say that all mouth-havers have been guilty of this sin at one time or another: when we were sloppy drunk, or a little surly, or just didn’t care what that other music-festival attendee thought of us afterwards. Most stints of bad kissing, though, can be attributed to being young, shy, and radically inexperienced. Some of us grow out of it, but many don’t. The end result is that we’re all in this ugly boat together.
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If you have seen the new Mad Men, let’s talk about it! SOMEONE START A THREAD. It’s like Matt Weiner realized he only had three episodes left to cover race and feminism!!! That’s okay, bro, I’m here for it anyway.
I’ll start: JOAN! Joan. jooooooaaaan.
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NERDDD ALERT:
Tags: feminism, link roundup, the internet
PEGGY FUCKING OLSEN YOU GUYS.
I just want that last scene of her playing in a loop for all time. The cigarette! The sunglasses! The tentacle pr0n painting designed to fuck with the patriarchy!
Peggy Olsen don’t give no fucks. Peggy Olsen is gonna to burn McCann-Erickson to the GROUND.
PEGS! PEGGY!!! This gif is how i want to feel inside 24/7.
Also– JOAN. Just a few eps back she said “i finally got the job I always wanted” 🙁 CRUEL CRUEL WORLD
I’m hanging all my hope on the fact that Joan took her Rolodex with her and is going to blaze her own path with it.
That, or use it is kindling to start a cleansing fire at McCann. BURN THEM.
When Harry dropped his cigarette at the old office I had high hopes that it wouldn’t go out. And it would be Harry’s fault!
I know – like is this it? Is Joan just going to become a lady of leisure with that idiot from CA? Did we really watch 7 seasons of joan’s ascent to watch her get smashed by the patriarchy? FUCK THAT
I spent pretty much all of Joan’s scenes shouting advice (well, ‘advice’; it mostly consisted of MURDER EVERYONE, JOANIE) at the television. I hope next episode, we see her starting up her own agency full of women with nothing to lose and great creative minds.
YES. Exactly. I have taped that gif/ scene to the inside of my heart and am drawing strength from it.
Peggy in this whole episode. Peggy on skates. Peggy in sunglasses. Peggy forever.
AN ENTIRE THREAD OF PEGGY GIFS
Also, how cute was this scene? Roger wants company, and to stick it to McCann. Peggy doesn’t like Roger all that much, but McCann hasn’t given her any reasons to like them either, so she lets herself be talked into staying. Five hours later, apparently they’ve just been hanging out and drinking in a collegial, nonsexual, but also whimsical manner.
“You know I have to make men feel at ease.”
“Who told you THAT?!”
God, Roger was so perfect this episode (so was Peggy). How did they wait so long to put him with Peggy for a long series of scenes?
It’s like Tywin and Arya. 😉
I’ve watched maybe twelve episodes of Mad Men with Mr. Kai_Ko (so, like, not so invested) and I was legit enraged when Joan gets thrown under the bus. Her arc on that episode like a fucking paint-by-numbers of why feminism in the workplace is a true thing.
This is my new FB profile image.
Mine, too!
I really really loved Linda Holmes’s piece on NPR’s Monkey See about this episode: http://www.npr.org/blogs/monkeysee/2015/05/04/401…
“Joan is in a peculiarly brutal moment that arrives in lots of lives: the moment when the anesthesia of low expectations for your life has worn off and allowed in the pain of the unjust impediments to getting what you are finally prepared to admit you want.”
GODDAMN. Christina Hendricks in that scene with Roger–realizing how completely he had let her down, again, just like he did every time, because that’s all you can expect from Roger anyway, because he’s probably the weakest character on this show. Even if he had helped her, though, it probably would have been too little, too late–not unlike Don in “The Other Woman.” Because even the non-Jim Hobarts and Ferg Whatevers and Herb Rennets (ugh)–the Dons and Rogers who love Joan and respect her–helped to create the world that did this to her, just as much.
Agh, the scene with Roger killed me too! It’s like Richard said earlier- if you send the right guy, he doesn’t have to do anything, just show up. I know that Roger really thought he was giving Joan the best advice, but it read as such a betrayal to me.
When Joan grabs her kid’s photo & Rolodex I thought “damn, Roger, you’re never seeing your son again.”
Did anyone else rewind the octopus scene about a dozen times trying to pause on the perfect Peggy reaction face?
Joan, I am sad that you have to be The Woman Who Represents How Women Get Screwed Over. I love you as an individual.
Diana, you are probably an interesting person in your own right but you have been sucked into the orbit of Sad Don. I’m so sorry, there is nothing we can do for you.
Shirley, I want you to know I remember you calling Roger “amusing” and getting away with it. Nice exit, and it’s not fair that you got that little speech in the beginning of a much more dramatic episode. Don’t let em overshadow you! AMUSING.
HA I loved “you’re very amusing.” Never change, Shirley.
ALSO Competent Meredith, I like you. I like that you get to end the show on a good note, and McCann better give you the best damn secretary job they’ve got after Don drives into the ocean or whatever he’s gonna do.
Right? It’s 1970, no one has changed except Meredith and she is killing it.
*lights building on fire*
*skates away*
Just watched this last night, so amazing. Also “Will you drink vermouth?” “I’m afraid I will”.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY NICOLE!
Game of Thrones omg you guys!!! (rest in 2nd comment to hide spoilers)
so apparently R+L=J is way more likely to be true. I always thought it made sense, but after the talk with Sansa it is so apparent. And it is why Melisandre wanted to jump Jon’s bones.
Also, Grey Worm and Ser Barristan!! Ser Barristan in particular wasn’t that fleshed out in the show, but I am so sad to see them both go.
Being a book reader is no longer a help and it’s so stressful.
I legit teared up when Stannis told his daughter how much he loved her.
Shireen is going to take the Iron Throne at the end of this, I swear.
I’m increasingly nervous for Shireen.
Stannis: Shireen, my love for you is my only humanizing characteristic
*Literally 2 feet away*
Selyse: UGH, my daughter is an uggo and the worst
Mel: And yet she has a role to play, remember there is power in kings blood…
Selyse: *MEANINGFUL GLANCE*
Melisandre: “MEANINGFUL GLANCE*
Stannis: *EXPRESSIONLESS BROODING*
Stannis Baratheon: Father of the Year, Westeros 302AL
I usually don’t get upset when books=/=show, but I was very upset at the Unsullied’s fighting and Ser Barristan dying.
hmm I’m torn. While the unsullied being beaten by weirdos in masks with no armor was annoying, watching Grey Worm defeat like 15 guys by himself was like the opposite of GRRM’s view of fighting from what I’ve read. He’s talked about how if one guy fights 3, he wants people to know that usually the 3 will win. Same goes with Bronn. As much as I like Bronn, it seems a bit to action hero for me.
Even in the show the Unsullied are this elite, unbeatable fighting force yet like a dozen of them get immediately housed by loosely organized dopes in flowing robes & masks that have to severely restrict peripheral vision. Sure you can tell me that they aren’t set up to work the urban patrol beat, but come on.
Man that hall was so big and they didn’t even TRY to form up in a line! Like they have been literally training to do since they were babies!
That was such bullshit.
Also, in my opinion, that was a very badly-staged fight; they covered up a lot of questions (how did the Unsullied lose, how is Grey Worm winning) by just hiding the number of people who were supposed to be there and what their tactics were. Is Ser Barriston winning? Yes! No wait, no, there are five more guys! Wait, Grey Worm can help he just killed a bunch…no hold on, there are another six guys over there.
Now they’re both dead and…hold on, where are the bodies of the rest of the Unsullied? What exactly happened here?
Also I mean if they are going to be doing patrols in cities, they should have already switched to close-quarters arms, like a big old falcata or something, instead of those long-ass spears, but THAT WAS A HUGE HALL, they had plenty of room to spear guys!
RIGHT.
My husband’s reaction to the Unsullied getting owned was “well they’re using spears, that’s not good in close quarters” and I was like “you’re telling me they couldn’t have found some fucking swords?!?”
It’s ludicrous that they didn’t carry swords as a sidearm in the first place, what spearmen in history didn’t carry swords? Spears BREAK, man! They get stuck in the body of your enemy and you have to let them go sometimes! WHAT KIND OF MICKEY MOUSE OPERATION IS THIS.
Oh thank god other people are annoyed about this too! Dany is NOT getting her money’s worth out of these people if they can’t even take down a bunch of masked idiots who wouldn’t have been able to see or breathe in those things! Dammit, Unsullied, SER BARRISTAN IS DEAD AND IT’S YOUR FAULT!
YES YES YES THIS
Also aforementioned dopes were soft slave-holding elites who probably didn’t spend their entire childhood training to be soulless killing machines.
How did they beat the unsullied?
and all they had were KNIVES come on
I agree that them beating the Unsullied so easily is silly. BUT I think it’s also very likely the Sons of the Harpy is probably made up of a lot of former slaves who have no other occupation and so are being paid by the former Masters. Possibly even former members of the fighting pits?
I actually like this theory but I think it’s too nuanced for the show. Maybe I’m just being cynical right now.
wasn’t the harpy that they actually captured and was killed by the former slave not a wealthy merchant?
I am trying SO HARD to not be bothered by how much the show has veered from the books. Still trying. The male companion was LIVID sun over the Unsullied being taken down by vigilantes– they’re the greatest fighting force in the world! They broke formation!
I covered this last wk, but I am increasingly CONCERNED that LF is leaving Sansa to just… DEAL w Ramsay Bolton. It is not going to go well!
Re. Sansa: RIGHT. Also, inconsistent characterization: you’re telling me that LF is supposed to be Super Gossip Man w/ Super Gossip Network, and he doesn’t know that Roose Bolton has a psychopath illegitimate son?!? That he then got an order from the King to legitimize in order to ensure the Bolton’s alliance with the Lannisters?
ahhhhhhhh
[I imagine someone else already covered this last week, I am now trying to dip mentally back into other things in order to avoid Rebuilding Baltimore overload.]
Ramsay has is now flaying noble Northern houses & the did the entire garrison of Moat Caitlin last season. No one has mentioned this to LF?!
Wild Theories With PJ this AM: I actually think Littlefinger knows exactly what the Boltons are/how much of a monster Ramsey is. I think he’s wiling to put Sansa out on a limb while he gets out of dodge to wait out Stannis’ attack on Winterfell. He knows he wouldn’t do well in a battle situation, so he’s going to King’s Landing to handle other things and see what happens up North.
Agreed. I think Little Finger knows exactly what’s up. His grand talk to Sansa about being Wardeness of the North and it being her birthright and blah blah blah—I think he’s putting stars in her eyes so she can’t see what a monster her betrothed is.
I’ve been wondering about this too, but unlike Kai_Ko I think he is just counting on Stannis to hopefully save her. If that doesn’t work I imagine he is fully committed to the “oh wells, she’s a smart girl, right?!?” Plan B, which is terrible.
If they keep that storyline from the books but just swap Sansa in for the other character, I am probably going to stop watching the show. Ughhhh.
Yeah. I’ve heard rumors about that happening, and I happened to mention said rumors to Mr. Wren. He is in a massive state of denial. “But they wouldn’t do that to SANSA!” Ummm…based on previous show experience, yes, I think they would. Dear god I hope not, but I am bracing myself for the worst/a quick exit strategy.
That might be the line for me too. I’ve heard some theories that since Ramsay isn’t so menacing, Sansa might just join him in the sadistic craziness which would be.. dark, but I think more preferable than the book storyline.
I will burn this place to the ground if that happens, so help me god. *angry face*
I’ve heard set rumours that there were a couple of actors that had a very uncomfortable scene and they were very uncomfortable. The rumours imply that it’s a Ramsay-Sansa scene, although you never can tell with these things.
But I just started rewatching GoT from Season 1, and Dany’s rapes by Khal Drogo stood out because she wept the entire time and then got to scheming about how to make it better. Granted, she did it by taking control of her sexuality and Sansa should DEFINITELY not try that with Ramsay, but I think Goth!Sansa can scheme up some pretty decent revenge/manipulations if she does start getting assaulted by her husband.
i definitely hope she conspires with that one old lady to murder them all. Like by poisoning them at a banquet or something? Or stabbing them all in their sleep? I don’t care, I just want Littlefinger to get back to Sansa sitting on a pile of bodies.
Have you seen this? http://chryswatchesgot.tumblr.com/post/1176367829…
A+, would tune in weekly
I have 150% faith that Sansa is going to play sweet and then slit Ramsey’s throat in the middle of the nights. And since no one in the North likes him they will rally behind Sansa. So if Roose asks what happened to Ramsey the response will be “Isn’t is tragic how he fell on that knife 13 times. Oh so terrible how these things can happen sometimes. One must be careful.”
Barristaaaaaaaaaaan 🙁 I freaked out at the end of the episode. (I’m a book reader myself.)
Man they were really hammering R+L=J weren’t they? Pretty much confirmation as far as I’m concerned.
Also, no racially diverse Sand Snakes?! NO POISON BASTARD DAUGHTER? sorry. i’ll calm down. breathe.
Yes, I am rarely going to say this, but I kinda wished that they had that one white Sand Snake (the one who was described as being all Septa like) and one that had a Summer Islander mother.
I mean Sarella is probably cut from the show as well as the Oldtown plot but still! SARELLAAAA
They should have them all! The fun part is that Oberyn was a well-traveled slut who loved his kids. He was arguably the best Dad in all of Westeros! And all his daughters are crazy and violent in their own unique ways. Except Sarella and her… “game” mwahahaha
Anyway, im nonplussed.
Keisha Castle-Hughes is mixed-race, and one of the other toe is half Asian.
Well my pt isnt that they’re not Women of Color (which the show needs regardless). My point was in the books they are all different mixed races which is cool visually and informs a lot about the culture / diversity / general openess of Dornish culture.
Dissertation completion high five! The emotional roller-coaster gets to take a damn break.
JOAN. Joan was on fire. She would not be intimidated. She let that evil old man know she wasn’t afraid of him either.
A friend I knew in college wrote about the legal history of workplace equality which puts Joan’s decision in perspective: http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2015/05/04/36542…
There was no precedent for her success in this situation. That just puts her poker-faced refusal to back down in Jim Hobart’s office more amazing, though! I hope we get to see Joan one more time before the series ends.
Yeah, I think that’s sadly true as far as sexual harassment goes. I think Joan might have had a chance on discrimination, saying that she was denied rank and status at McCann on account of her sex, but that’s a lot less potent.
I think if Joan had a legal shot, it was her contract. It must have said something like “work for us for five years and you’ll get $500,000” or the like, and she might be able to argue that they were preventing her from working and therefore waived their right to demand her services for the money. Still risky, though.
I think she had to know that the story of how she got her partnership share would come out in any lawsuit. When that one dick says “I don’t know who you inherited your partnership from” or whatever, she gets stony-faced.
Do you think she thought she’d have a shot at a legal claim, or that she was totally bluffing? I can’t decide! I feel like maybe she threw out a couple names she’d heard on the news, assuming that Hobart hasn’t exactly looked into the legality of sexual harassment either and she could scare him a little. No matter what though….damn good negotiator.
I can easily imagine Joan doing a little homework for that confrontation. Last time she asked a senior man at that office for help, it burned her, so she must have come prepared to draw her guns if simple workplace decency didn’t avail.
And I also think she must have known that the legal case was a long shot. She didn’t need Roger to tell her that, but she did learn from him that she couldn’t count on internal politics to work in her favor.
I can’t wait to see what she does next. Joan loves to work! I can’t imagine her being happy as the pampered partner of that California guy, who doesn’t really get her. Maybe, like Ken, she can work her contacts into an awesome new position.
Yes, totally in character for her to do research. Though she seemed to go from “looking forward to new job” to “threatening the big boss” in….2 days? 3? So I’m not sure when she would have done it, unless she’d had her suspicions (or thoughts about her SCDP experience) earlier. I am just so frustrated at seeing her do everything right in this episode, like, she goes up the chain of command and states her case so reasonably, and you know Pete would be in there stamping his feet and wailing, reeking of bourbon, demanding Don intercede for him.
I will grudgingly accept Mr. California as her lover if she also gets a career with absolutely no connection to him.
Can we talk last night’s Jane the Virgin?? Spoilers in the comments.
The Jane and Michael phone call/texting at the end gahhh, my heart. It feels a little like they’re foreshadowing doom and gloom for Michael – the narrator’s line that he’d love her til he died, plus the Nadine storyline. Would she/someone else Sin Rostro come back to punish him?
Even though Petra is a “villain” on this show, I could watch her forever. More scheming.
Does anyone else not really care about the custody plotline?
Also, I looooved Lina’s short hair and her dress at the reunion.
I haven’t seen last night’s episode (will try to catch up tonight) but I pretty much wrote Michael off early-ish on in the season when the narrator said the ‘love her til he died’ line. Whenever he appears in scenes I’m 50% watching and 50% wondering if this will be his last one – that kidnap plotline last week (or the week before?) when he was looking for Petra in the dark, I was like ‘this is it for sure’, but no. Oh and when last week he confronted Nadine saying she was on the list, I thought she would try to shut him up or something. Basically it turns out I’m really bad at guessing final scenes for characters. Not that I want him to die! Just that pretty sure he will.
Then again, it’s been renewed – so maybe he’ll live well into season 2.
I haven’t watched last night yet either, but I am guessing that Michael will meet his demise in a way that somehow involves Andi…like maybe trying to protect Jane from her when she goes Full Single White Female. Because when Andi was introduced didn’t the narrator say something like “Jane didn’t know it yet, but [Andi] would change her life forever?” Or maybe they just said someone in her writer’s group would change her life forever, I can’t remember. But that combined with Michael’s “til he died” line and the fact that Andi was even brought into this in the way she was…I sense a Fatal Attraction moment looming in the distance.
Rago said the collection’s personal and historical significance took his company by surprise.
How very fucking nice that you live a life where you get to be surprised by people finding the auction of the possessions of actual human beings held in actual internment camps distasteful. ::spits::
Am I the only woman alive who doesn’t appreciate Amy Schumer? I feel like I’m missing something.
I haven’t seen any of her recent work, so I might need to do that before I firm up my opinion…but some of her standup from a few years ago was kind of icky, IMO.
I find her show to be much funnier than her stand-up. I think the show benefits from a team of writers.
I continue to be puzzled by all the exclamations that she’s got “the most feminist show out there!” or whatever. I do enjoy some of her sketches and find her funny, but a lot of her humor that’s gender-based isn’t exactly feminist… I dunno, I guess we have to just take what we can get?
I feel like I only heard of her last week, haven’t actually seen any of her stuff, and am ALREADY disappointed in her because no way can anyone live up to the hype.
[kick frustratedly at internet]
I agree that the hype is hyperbolic, but her Very Realistic Military Game sketch lives up to it. Goddamn, I can’t believe that was on TV.
I think a lot of it has shifted in the past couple of years. If you watch the first season of the show (and a lot of her older standup) there’s very little direct commentary on gender and the world. And when gender does come up, she doesn’t seem to be taking shots directly at the world, just a lot of testing the lines and getting mileage out of “pretty girl says gross stuff”.
But then in the second and now overwhelmingly in the third, a lot more of the sketches have been running directly at injustices and stereotypes. And because it’s a slightly new take, and she wraps it in well-timed punchlines, it’s very, very shareable. It’s definitely not the “most feminist” (by whatever weird way you would define that term), but it’s easily the “most share-ably feminist, the easiest version of feminist to talk about on the interwebs, in this exact cultural moment.”
Nope, fudge to her and her racist cobblers. She has done jokes based on ‘smelly Mexicans’ and other such ghastly tripe.
She has an occasional funny sketch, but she’s mostly “girls can be crass too,” which is icky. I don’t like it when men are gross, so a woman being gross isn’t funny to me.
I haven’t seen her show either, and I liked her sketch with Tina Fey and Julia Louise Dreyfuse, but I saw her on Ellen and it was just a ream of self-deprecating fat girl jokes. Maybe it was supposed to be subversive?
Did any other UK-based Toasts hear the South Yorkshire Police and Crime Commissioner talking about the Rotherham child abuse investigation this morning? He confirmed, to my absolute fury, that part of the reason it took so long for the police to do anything about it was because they presumed the children (children! Girls under 16! Girls as young as 11!) were sex workers rather than abuse victims – that the girls were active and willing participants in the process.
The next time someone tries to tell me that rape culture isn’t even a thing, this is the first example I am going to direct them to – where POLICE OFFICERS AND SOCIAL WORKERS not only didn’t understand the concept of grooming IN THE YEAR 2005, but found it easier to believe that an 11 year old girl (who couldn’t legally get a tattoo or piercing without written parental consent) was a sex worker by choice rather than a victim of abuse. WHAT. THE. FUCK.
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/may/05/po…
YEP. Really peeved that this hasn’t been brought into the election more. But I guess systemic abuse of women and girls is less interesting than giant blocks of stone.
Right? I could hardly find the story to link to on the Guardian front page amidst all the pictures of Nick Clegg on his party bus or whatever. UGH.
Oh my Christ. Oh no. Oh no.
I can’t with the world today.
The South Yorkshire Police are corrupt as fuck, and there were definitely kickbacks involved in this. That, of course, is far harder for irate Daily Mail op-eds to scream about than ‘OMG IT’S PC GONE MAD!’
So, I want to ask this about the response to the shooting in Garland — like, I get the response if you are a bigot who wants to institute some kind of anti-Muslim pogrom in the United States, and so you try to set off a war by baiting some violent fanatic into attacking you and then making a big deal about how Communists could be hiding under your bed or whatever.
But I don’t get what people who think of themselves as being hardcore free speech advocates get out of this? Like, yeah, those guys who tried to shoot up the “art show” did not believe in free speech, but also they got shot, an even if they hadn’t been, they would have gone to jail. Isn’t this basically the best that we can do at this point? Surely, no one believes that we’re going to build some kind of culture of free speech where NO ONE responds violently to speech they don’t like. And if we accept that there’s always going to be some (hopefully very small) portion of the population that doesn’t follow laws or what have you, then isn’t this basically exactly what we should expect from this system?
That’s pretty much what the woman from CAIR (the Council on American Islamic Relations) said on NPT today.
As many jackass mormons as there are out there, and there are many, there is not actually a trend of mormons showing up with guns to kill the South Park guys or whoever else makes fun of Joe Smith. If MRA hitmen have been going around whacking Toast contributors or gamergate twitterers or whatever they’ve done a remarkable job of keeping it off the news. For a while you did see say a spate of fundamentalist murders of abortion clinic practitioners, because that got them the results they wanted – then it stopped working so good, and they petered out. Violent loons happen here and there but the reasonable expectation of fundamentalist killteams is not just a fact of life that happens regardless of group or subject matter, that’s a pretty goddamn wierd claim to make and not a norm most people want to instill in society. It’s a phenomenon rooted in a specific group at this specific point in time.
It’s got a specificity and a context because it’s behavior that’s being rewarded. Wahabbist crapsacks haven’t been killing cartoonists since the dawn of time as some kind of basic feature of humanity or religion or even Islam – they found out in the past few years it’s a great way to get free airtime for their propaganda, freak out the normals and make themselves local heroes, so there’ve been a whole string of copycat killings. The NPR crowd seems bent on casting this as a Muslim problem, infantilizing the lot as somehow unable to consistently restrain their killing urge like the rest of us folks and huffing ‘well what do you expect’ every time a guy who draws a mean picture gets killed until the death penalty for breaking the fundies’ rules becomes the norm. Maybe setting up a bunch of mohammed cartoon honeypots and punking any jihadists who show up until they stop showing up is what it’ll take to discourage any more angry young guys from trying to go out hard that way.
This isn’t related to the Link Roundup (which was FAB as always thank you), I need to vent! Ontario has finally passed some decent & progressive changes to the sex ed curriculum for schoolchildren (talking about gender identity & sexual behaviours before grade 9, amongst other things), but some parents apparently feel this would make their children stop being ‘precious, innocent little snowflakes’ http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/anal-oral-se…
Not to mention, after tweeting a giant amount of support for the new curriculum, I wound up mock-arguing with some ignorant guy who pulled out the dusty classic “WHAT U DO IN UR HOUSE, DON’T TEACH IT TO MY KIDS! I HAVE GAY FRIENDS I CAN’T BE A HOMOPHOBE! my kids shouldn’t learn about gay marriage” so I’m pretty done with “parents” today gah.
A relative of mine was wigging out about it and expected me to be on board and I was just SHRUG EMOTICON
Apparently some people have been spreading misinformation about what is actually going to be taught, which is panicking parents. At one school OVER A THOUSAND KIDS were pulled yesterday to protest the new curriculum.
I mean wtf. Ontario has had the same sex ed curriculum for MORE THAN 15 YEARS, even without the good revamp to talk about consent and sexual orientation and gender identity and teaching proper body part names at a young age, it would still need an update just to be relevant to kids today.
HAH I’ve just read the Star article about the misinformation & my mind just boggled http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2015/05/04/fact-c…
You’re right though, in my opinion it doesn’t go far enough BUT honestly it’s so much better than what was in place before. My “body parts” education was in grade 4 & consisted of a video with a woman cutting a pancake into a vaguely ‘feminine’ shape & pointing at it??????????????????
I guess I was super lucky … we had a mixed Grade 4/5 class, and our teacher taught sex ed and we had a nurse come in for parts of it. There was a box kids put questions in anonymously and our teacher even showed us a condom (sticking his fingers in, memorably making everyone wig out).
That fact-check article is KILLING me. “Destroy the idea of gender, natural law, heterosexual family normalcy. You choose your gender.” Ummmmm, yes, please.
!!!!!
Warning for autoplay video on that, future Toasties scrolling down. clicked to read on my next break and then super loud chanting WE SAY NO.
Teach your kids yourself what their school will likely teach poorly. As well as working for curriculum improvements. Gotta fight on both fronts.
They kept running this footage on the news of someone waving a sign that said “math not masturbation! science not sex!” and I was just like . . . you are aware what sex is, right?
Science not sex? ::throws up hands:: Wish we’d known that sooner. Mr. Rose wasted his entire adult life working in biology.
This FB group supporting the curriculum took off across my feed yesterday: https://m.facebook.com/profile.php?id=10830777283…
there’s a lot of articles in there debunking the myths (no, grade ones are *not* being taught anal sex, yes, parents *were* consulted, you just weren’t paying attention, nutbags)
Hooray Nikki! Happy Birthday!
Thank you Nicole!!! I love and cherish you, too. For my next birthday, let’s hire someone so I can go to the gym!
DEAL. I do think by next year we’ll want a WordPress monkey so you can write more/go to the gym.
I will contribute to that Kickstarter, tier 12!
My husband says that completing a dissertation is not merely an intellectual task, it becomes acutely physical towards the end, the transition occuring once one accepts it merely needs to be finished and gives up on doing it particularly brilliantly.
Your husband is 100% right about this. Many, many congratulations missellabell!
Is this where we share our dissertation-completion stories? I had a very busy bunch of days after my advisor said, nope, an “epilogue” is not enough, you need a conclusion that states an actual argument. (She was right.) Then I turned it in and spent the whole next day in bed, feeling fine. It was a warm, rainy day and it was absolute bliss.
The day I turned in my paperwork saying my revisions were good enough I ran around grad offices demanding high fives. Hey missellabell: high five.
Yaaaay! Congratulations to you too!
I need all the inspiration and motivation I can get to finish this god-awful thing, so, yes please!
Happy birthday Nicole!!
And happy dissertation-completion @missellabell!!
Baltimore updates:
-According to the police,a gun was discharged during the arrest of a man at the corner of Pennsylvania Ave and North Ave, which is the corner that has come to be known as the epicenter of the Baltimore Uprising. Eyewitnesses said that he was shot while handcuffed, but the article quotes State Sen. Pugh saying that the mother said that he wasn’t shot. It was kind of tense for a few hours, but my Twitter feed seems to have calmed down about it.
-An honestly really good Slate article about the “Baltimore Idyll.” I’ve never called it such in my mind, but she isn’t far off when it comes to the amenities of being middle-class and non-Black in Bmore, AND I’m glad she concludes with a “at what price?/we are benefitting from this in real ways, we need to give back.” Usually when non-Black middle-class people discuss Baltimore among ourselves, there’s a lot of bitching about crime and high property taxes (see most comment sections)–both of which are still problems, but it’s nice to see a piece where someone acknowledges that we have access to a lot of stuff at a bargain compared to DC and other major cities. Maybe not Philly, though.
-Let’s not forget that there are protesters with enormous bail amounts that still need help. Please contribute if you can. https://www.crowdrise.com/legalbailsupportforbalt…
-Last thing: great illustrated essay about what has happened in Baltimore, drawing parallels between what happened on Saturday between some Os fans (sorry guys, I’m an Os fan myself) and during the Civil War.
Things that disturb me:
– That someone thought of the belongings of people imprisoned by their own government for their race as something that could be auctioned off. It’s like someone who inherited land that a Nazi concentration camp was located on finding a cache of gold teeth and looking for the highest bidder.
– Describing Valerie Solanas as a “madcap polemicist”. Really? How about the wit and wisdom of Mark David Chapman?
“Once it became evident that the community felt it would be disrespectful to bring this material to auction, we realized we had to pull this lot from the sale,” he said.
The “aw shucks” element of this quote is such, such, bullshit.
UGH
It’s very “I’m sorry that you feel I did something wrong.”
happy birthday, nicole!
As an alternative to 8 minutes, I can suggest the On the Media segment on $pread: the Best of the Magazine that Illuminated the Sex Industry and Started a Media Revolution. The book itself sounds really awesome too, but I can’t vouch for it personally as I am currently testing the bounds of my library system’s ILL to see if they will get it for me.
Unrelated: If anyone wants to talk Penny Dreadful (AKA the Vanessa Ives show with bonus witches), I am also here for that.
Happy Birthday Nikki! We are birthday twins, and I am super-honored to know that I share a birthday with one of the smartest writers on the internet!
SHE BETTER PIGEON PIE THE BOLTONS THIS IS THE ONLY GOOD THING THAT CAN COME OUT OF THIS.
Oh thank god other people are annoyed about this too! Dany is NOT getting her money's worth out of these people if they can't even take down a bunch of masked idiots who wouldn't have been able to see or breathe in those things! Dammit, Unsullied, SER BARRISTAN IS DEAD AND IT'S YOUR FAULT!
I haven't watched last night yet either, but I am guessing that Michael will meet his demise in a way that somehow involves Andi…like maybe trying to protect Jane from her when she goes Full Single White Female. Because when Andi was introduced didn't the narrator say something like "Jane didn't know it yet, but [Andi] would change her life forever?" Or maybe they just said someone in her writer's group would change her life forever, I can't remember. But that combined with Michael's "til he died" line and the fact that Andi was even brought into this in the way she was…I sense a Fatal Attraction moment looming in the distance.