Miss Major on the Stonewall movie:
The best thing I can remember about that night is that when the girls decided, “no, we ain’t doing this,” some of the girls got out of the paddy wagon and came back, the police got so scared they backed into the club and locked the doors! I mean, if nothing else, that was the funniest thing to have in your mind watching it happen. And meanwhile across the street there are all these cute little white boys cheering us on, and saying “don’t hurt the girls!” and all this blah blah. They weren’t in the fight.
*
Rukmini Callimachi does a follow-up on the process of reporting her piece about the Yazidi women and girls used as sex slaves by ISIS (and also recommends Yazda as a good NGO and destination for donations):
Q: What special considerations do you have to take into account when talking to the victims, particularly those who are still children?
A: In the case of the 12-year-old, I interviewed her in the presence of her family. In the other cases, I interviewed them alone. I wanted them to be alone so they wouldn’t be ashamed, especially in front of male relatives.
But with the 12-year-old, it felt like that one was on the fence. She is a child. I wanted the family to be present at her side and to essentially vet my questions and make sure I wasn’t asking anything that went too far.
In every instance, we asked the women if they wanted to be identified or not. Most said they wanted to be identified by first initial or age. But there were also outliers. There were a couple of women — one older, one younger — who said, very clearly, that they wanted their names used and their faces shown. They said: “We are not ashamed and we are not afraid of them. By hiding in any way, by not identifying ourselves, we would be signaling shame.”
*
RIP, Julian Bond:
He strove to vanquish discrimination against anyone who knew oppression, his friends and family said, recently advocating for gay couples who wished to marry. He’d snap pictures with anyone on the street. He talked to the president.
“Justice and equality was the mission that spanned his life – from his leadership of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, to his founding role with the Southern Poverty Law Center, to his pioneering service in the Georgia legislature and his steady hand at the helm of the NAACP,” President Obama said in a statement Sunday. “Michelle and I have benefited from his example, his counsel, and his friendship – and we offer our prayers and sympathies to his wife, Pamela, and his children.”
*
Here is a picture of my friend Carrie’s puppy, at a bar:
*
In other puppy news, Anne Helen Petersen has a new puppy as well:
*
This is how Emily St. John Mandel edited Station Eleven, and it worked out really well for her, so maybe try that?
*
Lisa Hix has an AWESOME interview with Anita Pointer of the Pointer Sisters on music, the civil rights movement, and her massive collection of black memorabilia:
I first discovered black memorabilia in 1980. We were headed to Prescott, Arkansas, where my momma’s from, and we saw an antiques store. I’ve always loved looking around antiques stores, so we stopped. That’s when I saw Dancing Sam, the first piece of black memorabilia that I bought. He was a painted black wooden doll, with a wire holder on his back and little hinges on his limbs. You hold him on top of a plywood platform, and you tap the plywood so he jumps and dances around. The packaging says, “Hours and hours of fun for your children.” [Laughs.] I was like, “Whoa, you mean kids would sit there and play with this for hours?” Dancing Sam was black with white lips, like blackface makeup, so he intrigued me. It all started there. I began going to antiques stores and picking up black memorabilia wherever I could.
*
This is a great idea! We should do this!
*
Friend of The Toast Hieu Truong is in a STRONGWOMAN competition for colon cancer! She’d love your help, or just some encouraging words!
*
I will never get tired of Joel and Tyler arguing about fictional dudes they would bang (today, Wolverine v Cyclops), and we don’t include a lot of stuff for or by gay dudes on this site, so honestly, I’m doing this for The Movement:
Joel: It’s not like there’s a wrong choice here, per se. I just prefer a tall man who can lead a group of disparate super-powered mutants. While it’s certainly in vogue in certain nerd circles right now to stan for Cyclops after years of being maligned by his lame characterization in both the source material and that god awful ’90s cartoon (I said it). But for me, the movies are where I really started to turn around on him. Sure, James Marsden’s chiseled features and blindingly white teeth didn’t hurt, but even while constantly being sidelined in the narrative, there is still something really charming about his devotion to Jean, the professor, and the school itself. How can you not like that guy?
Tyler: I dunno, he doesn’t have metal claws that shoot out from in between his knuckles, a hell of a lot of rage problems stemming from buried-away traumas, and a penchant for tank tops out of which his rippling biceps bulge. So, please, tell me more about how the blind guy who shoots lasers out of his face is the one to go with.
*
Tags: feminism, link roundup, the internet
That puppy is definitely not old enough to be in a bar!!! who dares lead the puppy youth astray! *pearl clutch*
If the liquor licensing board adds a K-9 unit, that bar is going to be in a LOT of trouble.
These are clearly neglectful owners. This puppy should be posted to me where I will love it and snuggle it and never bring to a pub (oh wait… that’s exactly what I would do.)
Not to be too easily offended or anything, but knowing several blind people through my about-to-be-blind sister, the argument that being ” the blind guy who shoots lasers out of his face ” makes Cyclops less eligible for bangship is a bit disappointing. yeah, fictional character, jocular context, etc. I know.
Also I’m 90% sure Cyclops isn’t blind and the goggles are just to hold his eye rays in. Maybe they were thinking of Daredevil…?
Yeah, I’m pretty sure he isn’t blind. He just can’t open his eyes without the glasses or he’d laser everything. He can see as long as he’s wearing his glasses/visors.
CYCLOPS IS NOT BLIND
ETA: ALSO EVEN IF HE WAS THAT IS A SUPER-GROSS REASON TO MALIGN HIS ATTRACTIVENESS
I suggest we now debate whether comics!Daredevil or Netflix!Daredevil would be a better date (it being a foregone conclusion that he is probably better than both Scott and Wolvie WHILE canonically blind!)
I think either one would be a better date, but at least half of Wolverine’s hookups/dates/girlfriends are, at least, still alive in some form or another.
I think comics Daredevil would be a better choice than Netflix Daredevil, who seems frankly like he’s got a serious stick up his butt. Comics Daredevil is at least capable of having fun.
Yeah, dating Matt Murdock in any form might be fun, but it’s bad for your long-term prospects.
This is my favourite panel in She-Hulk because sometimes I just want gratuitous drawings of butts in my comics.
It’s my favorite panel because I wish I could do a one-arm handstand! See, She-Hulk has something for everyone! Why doesn’t she have a movie yet?
I’m very fond of Soule’s run on She-Hulk, especially Angie and Hei-Hei.
Ooooooh this is a tough one because comics!Daredevil is a redhead and I do love me a redheaded man and the way Chris Samnee draws him I would totally hit that.
But then
Yup.
So much yes. It’s such a struggle, but those abs! 😍
How does no one recognize Matt with his mask on? Literally anyone who has ever seen him should be able to say “Oh it’s that lawyer guy with the unbelievable lips. I know him.”
Shit, netflix!Daredevil is even more distracting than I remembered. Shit.
Oh fuck, I have to go watch this show IMMEDIATELY.
I don’t know why I yelled that at you, you didn’t do anything, I just got worked up, sorry.
Nah, it’s cool. I get excited when I talk about superheroes too. 😀
Ugh. That plus the use of lame are not great.
“Lame” is probably the word I forget most often that I shouldn’t be using. I remember using it in front of a professor who had MS (and was in a wheelchair because of it) once and apologizing profusely, which he found hilarious.
I never say “lame” any more but I’m having difficulty excising “crazy” from my day to day language. I have my fair share if mental health problems which might be what’s causing this mental (ha) block, but it’s just not ok.
I accidentally woke up early and refreshed the toast for an hour.
Speaking of blackface, I was reading my college’s old yearbooks and they did blackface plays every year as part of the homecoming traditions.
Thankfully its no longer a tradition and the first years will be performing a Very Potter Musical parody I wrote about move in anticipation (FOUR DAYS UNTIL I MOVE IN GAH)
When I was in high school, I was on the Homecoming Committee, and it was our job to design and create a homecoming float for the parade. That year we were playing the Central Bucks East Indians (that is, the [Central Bucks East] Indians, not the [Central Bucks] East Indians), and the idea that the committee came up with was —
well, look, I have not always been the most racially-conscious or sensitive person, especially in high school; I was a teenage white boy, I had a lot of stupid bullshit to navigate around before I could become a human beings, but even so
Even so, what they wanted to do was have a guy dressed like an Indian who was tied to a totem pole and surrounded by fire with a big sign that said “Burn the Indians.” And even I said, “No, no no no, guys, you can’t do that. You can’t do that, seriously.”
“We just mean burn them on the football field“, as though that is actually an expression that people use.
Anyway, I spent a couple weeks convincing them not to do it and then quit the homecoming committee and didn’t help with the actual float at all; they all probably very rightly thought that I was lazy and feckless (which is true), but I don’t think I got enough credit for not letting them go through with that idea.
Ive seen my fair share of that. My high school was the only private school in my city not founded to escape integration, and even now my school was only 11% POC. We played other schools that were utterly horrible to our POC athletes. involving costumes. and fruit.
My school was about 50% African-American, but the homecoming committee was I think almost exclusively white. I’m not going to speculate why.
Oh hey we must have gone to the same college.
Though the cynical side of me says no, it’s highly doubtful that my super-white presents-itself-as-super-progressive school was the only one running university-sanctioned minstrel shows.
WOLVERINE IS THE ONLY CORRECT ANSWER TO THAT QUESTION (hugh jackman, you guys. hugh jackman and his arms). Apparently Tyler and I agree on our choices like 90% of the time so…
Also, it’s been 100 years since the death of Leo Frank (fair warning: the article opens with a really upsetting photo that I was Not Prepared For this early in the morning) so I’ll be listening to multiple versions of Parade on repeat.
Cyclops isn’t even an interesting alternative. So many better options in the X-Men (even if we’re movies-only)
Right? Why are they even making that comparison? Now, Wolverine vs. Beast? That is a discussion worth having. And my answer will be Beast. I love the little glasses.
oh, Beast is totally the answer there.
It’s right there in the name. Beast. Gimme.
BEAST FOR X-BOYFRIEND OF THE YEAR
Hugh Jackman and his butt. That man just knows how to wear a pair of jeans.
please and thank you
I also think the attraction is hugely enhanced by the fact that Hugh Jackman seems to be such a thoroughly nice and decent man. Also that he’s really attractive with sideburns, something very few men can claim.
There’s a shot in the first X Men movie of Wolverine’s ass in leather pants that was a formative event in my sexual development so, yeah.
Weirdly, Cyclops is much more my type (tall, little bit nerdy) but yeah, Wolverine aaaaall the way. Though honestly, Professor X (whether the Jean-Luc or the Scottish version) gives him a run for his money.
The problem with Professor X or Magneto (or both at the same time) is that they’re so hung up on each other that you’d always feel like the also-ran.
Agreed. That said, Michael Fassbender as Magneto is so hot that while watching the movies I don’t even care that he escalates everything to “kill all humans” on a dime.
He’s even hot doing the Levitating Stadiums Jazz Hands Thing.
There is literally no other believable reason for Charles’s years long bender in Days of Future Past than the fact that his boyfriend dumped him.
Absolutely. Also, my mainly-straight spouse has A Thing for Hugh Jackman and I am just having all the thoughts about being the peanut butter in that man sandwich.
Is this where I awkwardly whisper that I had a dream the other night about doing laundry with Hugh Jackman that…um…turned kind of sexy? It was very confusing to my waking brain, but my sleep brain was INTO IT.
So jealous. All my sleeping brain does is give me nightmares about clearly logical post-apocalyptic scenarios where I somehow survive despite having zero skills in that general area.
MOAR PUPPIES IN BARS! Fact: all bars should have at least one dog.
Go Hieu! Strongwoman/strongman competitions are the best and the competitors are inspiring and terrifying in equal measure.
Julian Bond was an amazing human being. 75 isn’t young, but it was still way too soon.
Both of those X-Men would be garbage mates, but depending on era, Wolverine might be slightly less-garbage. Because let’s be honest, Scott’s just killing time until Jean’s not dead anymore, again.
Pretty much every brewery I’ve been to here has either a dog already in residence, or multiple dogs visiting with their people. It’s glorious.
That is right and just.
There’s a tiny brewery open near my parents’, and you can take dogs in. My parents are thrilled at this. The dog is a little more reluctant, mostly because she is a princess that does not like to lie down on the floor.
There were four dogs at the brewery I went to on Saturday afternoon. I love Washington state.
I cannot think of a single X-Man I would date.
Not even Nightcrawler?
…
I rescind.
I am one of the straights, so take this with a grain of salt, but: Hank McCoy, Jamie Madrox (think about it), Nate Grey, Darwin (movie), Kurt Wagner. Plus, obviously, tons of the women, who tend to be much less awful.
Thanks for your support! The competitions are inspiring and terrifying in equal measure, so it’s very much appreciated! 😀
there’s a dog-friendly bar I go to sometimes, but sometimes there are no dogs there and it is very disappointing!!
Team Cyclops. Wolverine’s issues combined with long metal knives shooting out of his hands when he is scared/ upset/ hungry do not sound appealing. Give me the blowhard any time.
Right? Just physically, I feel like there’s more risk with the knife hands!
http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/201…
Saw this earlier and loved it; Womens only village that started as a safe place for sexual assault survivors and is now a pretty awesome community where they look after eachother and have all the babies and sex that they want.
Bonus; men from the other villages being dismissive and saying that women must have men around, but clearly they’re just threatened by how well all the women are doing without them.
Reminds me of a permanent version of the Womens Camp I spent ever summer of my youth going to with my Mum; Started as an excuse for women to leave the North of Ireland during July (historically bad time of year) and grew into a 3 week extravaganza with communal living, democracy and a Cabaret at the end of it all! (and in-fighting, affairs and drama, but that happens with you put 100+ lesbians in a field)
But I mean, that happens when you put 100+ anybody in a field.
True, but I think it takes on a different energy when its just women (been to similar things that are mixed-gender and the fights are different, although possibly more underhanded and bitchy)
That’s a wonderful article! I’m so happy that the women have a safe place that they’ve constructed for themselves, and those dudes who complain about it are hilariously stupid. Toast field trip to Kenya to buy some awesome jewelry and bask in the manlessness!!!
Toasts! I’m back from my vacation and home again in your loving, squishy embrace. Also it turns out I did not misplace that first batch of postcards, so hopefully everyone will have received theirs within the next week or two. Let me know!
I only got 58 emails during the 3 weeks I was away, and only 5 were things that would have required my attention. That should give you an idea of how slow things are in my office…
I got mine THANK YOU I loved it! It’s hanging on my office wall in all its naked-ladies-on-ponies splendor!
Is that the best painting ever or what? My only regret is that I couldn’t send one to every Toast reader because it just SCREAMS “Toast.”
I got mine and I HAVE been to Prague and agree with you on all its lovely points! Thank you!!!
Just finished a week of traveling and there, to welcome me home, is your postcard. Thanks very much! Yes, that is a deliciously textured rendering of a night sky. I spent a long while examining it as well as the whole of the composition. Interesting curve and lines.
Welcome home, winterbymorning. I am sorry your work is so slow, but happy if it gives you more time for The Toast. Squishy embraces from me.
The NYT’s obit of Julian Bond is pretty bad, though, guys. I’m not sure why they think describing his great-grandmother as “a slave mistress” is okay.
It’s racist bullshit. As is the fact that, if they accurately described it as rape, they’d get blowback from assholes.
PRECISELY.
WORD. It’s the shadiest thing I’ve read in a while. Like they’re trying to manufacture some drama between Julian Bond and John Lewis? And the part where Bond ~consigns himself to the lecture circuit~? And ending with that ~doggerel~? WHAT IS UP WITH THAT, NEW YORK TIMES.
Toast, you know last week’s article on Getting Yelled At? Well today I Got Yelled At but did not have a total breakdown over it! I’m so proud. Just had to share this with people I knew would appreciate this dilemma. Hope you’re all having a good Monday.
Yelled at on a Monday morning already? You get extra coping points for that.
I got nagged at. Which is not quite the same thing.
Aww, sorry to hear that. Hope your day improved!
*hugs* that’s such a big deal! Congrats! Getting Yelled At is the worst, and I’m glad you made it through ❤️❤️❤️
Thank you! This is so sweet y’all. <3 <3
I am totally team Cyclops. Even though most of my knowledge of X-Men comes from the 90s cartoon. Because Scott is steady and reliable and unlikely to accidentally claw your guts out in the middle of the night.
I am not saying that there isn’t a part of me that wants to heal Logan with my love, because their totally is (I am a sucker for wounded puppy eyes, and the fact that he is played in the films by Hugh Jackman doesn’t hurt), but he is way too fucked up and way to unwilling to DEAL with his issues. (Fucked up is fine, fucked up and unwilling to try to unfuck oneself is not)
Wolverine is the guy with whom I’d have the slightly-ill-advised one night stand, just to see what it’d be like (also because hot), and then afterward I’d stick with Cyclops as the steady partner.
To be fair to the Wolverine of the comics, he did do a lot to try to get over his issues (which I guess is basically a hundred and fifty years of PTSD); he went and became a samurai and learned about Japanese stuff, for example.
Also, he did a hell of a job running the school. That’s why I added the era conditional.
Yeah, Wolverine taking over the school was probably the best bit of character development for him I’ve ever seen, and he’s been one of my favorite characters for like twenty years.
I liked how it made sense in the context of his history of mentoring younger mutants and with his history of working through his issues, and how it emphasized that the X-Men, at their best, really aren’t a paramilitary force, but a group working to improve the world, symbolized by a guy who spent decades being manipulated and abused and used as a living weapon becoming the headmaster of a school of impressionable kids because he’d earned it by growing as a person in that same framework and he wanted to pay it forward. Jason Aaron really got Wolverine and the X-Men concept in a way that I loved, and worked through a couple of fairly stupid crossovers and events without losing that thread.
It also puts his conflicts with Cyclops — who grew up in the midst of this human-mutant conflict but without Wolverine’s century of psychological war trauma — in a light that makes roughly infinite percent more sense.
Waiting for playdate pics of tiny puppy and the Toast Kitten. Do they live close enough to make this happen?
Zelenka, SG Atlantis?!
No, actually, Jan Dismas Zelenka is my favorite under-appreciated Baroque composer. He wrote some lovely things for oboe.
Dogs aren’t allowed in bars in Ontario. Not even on patios. 🙁
I backed a kickstarter for a doc on Miss Major and will watch that instead of Stonewall.
That is criminal. I was recently at a bar in Chicago where the regular dog is given a tiny cup of beer all to himself, and it was adorable.
Puppy with a beer!
(I am so sorry if this spammed you with emails; I struggled mightily to post this picture, and then gave up.)
That interview was great! And it looks like, from the Kickstarter page, that that doc will be out in the fall.
I love the Anita Pointer piece! What a fascinating life she’s lead, from living in Jim Crow south to being in the Pointer Sisters to singing *the pinball song!!* from Sesame Street! And I love that she’s still dressing in funky vintage clothing and doing cool things. Would read her memoirs.
Collector’s Weekly (always the best articles there) does a great job highlighting a collection without reducing the potent objects to kitsch or decoration, but I’d also be interested in a discussion of the ethics of selling black memorabilia. I go to a lot of flea markets, and when they reach a certain size, you can inevitably find a white person selling black memorabilia. And you can bet they’re not just selling to conscientious black collectors like Anita Pointer, or you’d never see those pieces as ignorant “accents” in white people’s homes on lifestyle blogs…
I love that Anita Pointer interview. I love that she’s like “I’m going to collect ALL of it, good and bad, so fuckwads don’t get their hands on it and people don’t forget about it.” (well, I’m paraphrasing) Because it IS a dilemma in history fields, but an important one to confront: how to make sure people do not forget about this part of history or gloss over it, while making sure it doesn’t get perpetuated as a “cute, kitschy bygone era” thing or whatever. Like how the old Warner Bros cartoons have that statement that plays before them about how effed up the racism is and how it’s important to remember that it’s effed up and not just erase it from our collective memory.
Team Nightcrawler, duh. The blue and the tattoos and the Alan Cumming and the German accent and Catholic guilt? Sign me up!*
What do you mean that wasn’t in the context of the original article? THE ARTICLE IS WRONG!!
*Seriously though, we’re talking about Cyclops, Wolverine and Nightcrawler? Forget the lasers and the knife hands and just let them dance and sing. We don’t have to choose!
Alan Cumming. Nggh.
(Did you know he was an author? Cause I didn’t and I just finished his book and its exactly as bi-sexually debauched as you’d expect from that glorious man. )
WHAAAAAAA? Oh, man, I must go read that RIGHT NOW.
Its called Tommy’s Tale, about a bisexual man in London who’s approaching 30 and not so ok with it. Its a very fun read.
thankyouthankyouthankyou!
I feel like its my duty to share the joy of Cumming.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmdJEjJxYOY
James Marsden did such a good job playing Cyclops as a man with a stick jammed so far up his ass that it had fused with his spinal column that I legitimately did not realize he was a pretty decent actor for a while.
Cyclops, but Criss Chros?
Also, I mean, I know Wolverine is usually very burly, but it’s not like Cyclops is soft and flabby under his spandex uniform, I guarantee that guy does exactly two-hundred and fifty push-ups every morning.
Scott Summers was portrayed (at least in the early years of the X-Men) as being incredibly disciplined, which you’d expect from someone who was both an orphan who wanted to please his adoptive “father”, Charles Xavier, and also someone who knew that he could accidentally kill a bunch of people if his glasses fell off (and nearly did, at least once). Basically, his life consisted of working out, practicing in the Danger Room, coming up with routines for his fellow students (and getting upset if’/when they didn’t take them as seriously as he did), and moping over Jean Grey.
I didn’t know the Link Roundup could be even more important to me than it already is, and then you started posting these puppy pictures.
“The Toast transformed into a puppy blog so slowly I didn’t even really notice.”
It has become very important to me too. Some days I just hate everything but then the Link Round-up comes and I know there are good people to read and talk to.
Even when we’re talking about how we hate everything! Which is often! (I mean that sincerely, though, it’s good to rant without some rando jumping in like HI YOU DIDN’T ASK FOR ADVICE BUT HERE’S SOME or THAT IS A TINY PROBLEM, HERE IS THE REAL PROBLEM or JUST LOOK ON THE BRIGHT SIDE!!. Toasties are the best.)
It’s the perfect place to share something that’s making me ragey and I just need a few people to say “you are not suffering madness! THIS is madness!” Ah. Thank you, Toasties.
I just….. need to put this somewhere http://thoughtcatalog.com/melanie-berliet/2015/08…
Oh god. Oh god no. No.
I can’t bring myself to react to the content, so I’ll just say: it’s hordes, not hoards.
… ok just one content note. My partner kept his name. His reason? The same as my reason for keeping mine, namely that it’d been his name for close to thirty years and he’d gotten attached to it.
I started to read, but then my eyes rolled so hard that I couldn’t focus on the screen long enough to continue. Idiots like that make me glad to have kept my name.
“If hoards of men started taking their wives’ surnames, it would be an unfortunate and perhaps irreversible step towards a matriarchal goddess culture, which blows for guys because those cultures used to routinely kill male infants and treat males like slaves. In a world where there are already very few incentives for men to get legally shackled, this is one slippery slope I wouldn’t want to slide down.”
What?
This is a joke right? Like a deliberate exaggeration of silly MRA ideals? Right? right?
“perhaps irreversible step towards a matriarchal goddess culture”
New tagline for the Toast?
You sir are an impeccable genius.
I approve this message
I feel like it has to be satire?
Right? No man would just straight up say these things, especially to a female(I assume) writer?
UHHHHHHHHHHHHH
Literally this morning, I and a (male) co-worker ran into someone (male) we used to work with, and like the third thing he said to us was, “Can I talk about women managers?” And he talked about how they’re way more concerned about schedules and timetables, but sometimes you gotta be loose and spontaneous because things happen. WE TALKED FOR LIKE ALL OF THREE MINUTES TOPS and of all the things in the world, this was one of the things.
And I’m like THIS IS NOT THE SMALL TALK WE SOCIALLY CONTRACTED FOR
So yes, Men Will Straight-Up Say Things.
This is true. My head of development is currently on one about women getting pregnant (there’s 3 pregnant women in the office atm, including our new head of digital design)
He’s all: ‘Its just a fact that women get pregnant and you have to take that into consideration when hiring.’ and ‘There should be no special treatment when you come back from mat leave, you either come back and do the work exactly like you could before or you don’t come back’
To which I’m always like ‘Ummm NO.’ . We get on very well, he’s like my work big brother, but he’s straight up fucking wrong here.
I can’t say too much because I’m not really anonymous on here, but at lunch a co-worker made a racist AND sexist remark (two in one go!) that reduced me to just looking at him and saying “what?!”
He did not react. I stared at my plate for the rest of the meal.
Very often I’m the only girl out with the tech guys, and I’ve taken to flicking bits of my drink at them when they say insensitive/sexist things (they are usually joking, but still), you know like you do with cats and the spray bottle (also works for horses, and apparently men.)
Its working though, now they cringe when they say something they know I won’t like, cause they’re expecting water flicks, and they’re getting better about not saying it at all.
You are a hero.
My boss has taken to looking at me sideways whenever he says something that’s on the edge, and I do often contest things he says, or call him on it. The thing is, the guy who said that thing at lunch is someone who is prone to outburst of loud talking and thinly veiled aggression, so I know it’s a copout, but I tend to not want to confront him
If you do confront him and thinly veiled aggression turns into actual aggression then he gets fired 😀
But seriously, there’s rarely harm (in a work environment) in make a non-aggressive comment, like ‘Yo, not cool bro.’ (also speaking their language helps them comprehend). Or if you’re ever having a casual conversation with a higher up, just mention it in passing that he’s a prick, you never know you’re probably not the only one who’s said it
It is good that you are fighting these battles, but it is not your job. You can draw that line wherever want to, or wherever you need to to so that you feel safe.
Also sometimes when I’ve confronted an aggressive dude at work (Twice. Twice of the times) I get a lot of information about who in the office has been trained to ignore and minimize abuse and my life becomes briefly terrible.
It makes me mad how bad I and other people feel for not challenging these awful things. On one hand, I want to keep the peace and I know I might not be able to say something without sounding aggressive or rude or angry, and on the other, I feel like they NEED to be challenged because they think it’s okay to get away with saying these things? And I resent having to take this on for someone else’s awfulness.
Ugh.
I never possessed the ability to be polite about anything, its why I’m not in politics, I’m far to mouthy. I get it from my mother, who literally cannot walk into a room without challenging someone and inciting hatred/aggression from them (seriously, its amazing and depressing to watch)
So yeah, say something I don’t like and I will literally shout you down about why your wrong. Apparently I’m a Firebrand 😀 (I don’t know if that’s supposed to be a compliment, but I choose to take it as one.)
YES. It is a life goal of mine to be labelled a firebrand.
The boss offered to get me a soapbox, clearly I am making the right impression.
But seriously, after an entire school career being told to shut up and not to cause a fuss, I’m so happy that people at least sometimes appreciate my ridiculous notions and respect the insane amount of self confidence I pretend to have.
*slams head on desk*
Get. A. Fucking. Clue.
Also, I hope if he’s married or ever gets married, his partner/wife was/is/will be Aware Of This before they have kids.
He’s a really great guy, but a bit older than me and I guess he’s just of a different generation. I think we’re currently on a agree-to-disagree status over the pregnancy thing, since it currently isn’t affecting either of us much its more of a hypothetical argument
I am likely of his generation, if not older than he. That gives me the authority to say he’s WRONG. That shit was exposed as wrong when he was a child. He’s just clinging to sexist ideas to shore up a fragile self-image. Good for you, pushing back, making him think a bit.
I’m still wavering on whether or not it is. The matriarchal goddess thing threw me but everything else seems so plausible that I’m not sure I can say either way.
(It would certainly make me feel better to think it’s satire.)
it’s pinging my bullshit radar but I’m not sure why? Maybe the lack of any context like where she was asking the question. Maybe some of the over-the-top phrasing. I guess it sounds like a list of Reddit or Facebook comment thread replies, so a little more trying to be clever than trying to sincerely express what they think? I know some dudes have thoroughly gross opinions about this question, but something about this list is raising my skeptic eyebrows.
“…which blows for guys because those cultures used to routinely kill male infants and treat males like slaves…”
Gosh, yes, just imagine how horrible it would be to have centuries of civilizations consider you less than human because of your gender. It must be nigh unbearable.
Shut up.
“My sense is that on a genetic level women want to marry up and part of marrying up is that they’re buying into a certain kind of—for lack of a better word—dynasty and that means taking a man’s name.”
THERE’S SO MUCH THAT MAKES ME ANGRY HERE BUT SOMEHOW THIS IS THE WORST?
EDIT: nope i went into the comments and there’s someone who says Tumblr is worse than the Nazis why do I do this to myself why
I keep reading the comments at Hacker News about social issues, even though I’ve been on the internet for forever and I know it’s terrible, and I know the comments there will be especially terrible. I’m not sure why I do it either. Maybe I’m a little bit masochistic? Maybe it’s just important to keep reminding myself that even while I’m drifting through this little bubble of people who don’t suck, those other people are still out there.
“For instance, in any hypothetical state of emergency, I’m going be the one to sacrifice my life to save my wife and children. I should be the one whose name lives on.”
Wut?
tell that to lily potter
What the hell? By that logic, motherfucker, maybe you should name your kids after the person who ACTUALLY took her fucking life into her hands bringing them into this world? I know we’ve gotten really good at making sure people don’t die in childbirth in the western world and all but it’s still a greater legitimate risk than a hypothetical state of emergency that would require a manly heroic sacrifice.
“Listen, I’m a feminist. But we have to draw the line somewhere.”
what no we don’t, we don’t at all
Sensible feminist men, get your peers in fucking line.
THIS IS THE WORST
Do you think that these guys would freak out when they find out that no matter what name you want to give your kids, in the hospital when its born they put the mothers name on the wrist-thingy? For obvious that-person-just-came-out-of-that-person and we don’t want to loose it reasons.
I am just so confused right now.
“perhaps irreversible step towards a matriarchal goddess culture”
…and that is wrong how? (his follow up killing male infants is just silly.)
“I believe that the family is my domain. For instance, in any hypothetical state of emergency, I’m going be the one to sacrifice my life to save my wife and children. I should be the one whose name lives on.”
FUCK. Off. How many parents and assorted relatives would not sacrifice themselves to save loved ones and children? It has nothing to do with your peen, man.
I should know better than to follow links to Thought Catalog.
“my domain”
barf barf barf you are not a warlord, you are not a man with a fiefdom
Yes, that’s what makes it sadly hilarious. They have no idea what it would be like to have actual power, influence or prowess. Khutulun would have eaten them all for breakfast. And then taken their horses. If these busters even have horses.
I would not trust them with horses, especially since they wouldn’t have enough imagination to give them really good horse names, and instead just impose their own human surnames on them.
No man can take this responsibility. Trust me, this is how you end up with horses named ‘The Grey Mare’ and ‘The Bay’
Horse is gray, horse is a mare, bam, you gotta name right there. They should all just be called “Horse”, if we’re being honest.
/ HOT TAEKS
NGL I had a horse in for training once, came from a man, we weren’t told his name (he turned up in the middle of the night, probably didn’t have a name), so he was The Grey for the whole time he was with us, or The Grey Thing since we wasn’t very pretty.
But IME women are the ones who take the time to truely *find* a horses name… which is why they’re all called Dobbin, or Butterfly.
And seriously, the tradition between old horse men was to name the horse after the man you bought him from which is why a lot of horses are called Paddy or Mick (Seriously, all the horses in Ireland, Paddy or Mick, or Murphy.)
I kinda suspect men think of women this way too
I am reasonably certain that there are groups of young men from my life who only referred to me as “(vulgar hand gesture indicating big boobs) Ellen”.
“I should know better than to follow links to Thought Catalog.”
Right??? Why did I click and expect something funny????
“in any hypothetical state of emergency, I’m going be the one to sacrifice my life to save my wife and children”
it’s not like women have died giving birth since humanity has ever existed
“I should be the one whose name lives on.”
This, this totally reminds me of the elder Tenenbaum’s “died saving his family from a sinking battleship” joke.
And it’s also true that almost no women anywhere have died shielding their children (or other people’s children, for whom they are temporary caretakers) from physical danger. It’s just men who do that.
I was just thinking of the teachers at Sand Hook who died protecting their students.
And that part of the tragedy was well-publicized, so this dude has no excuse for forgetting it, other than an odd genetic inability to remember things done or said by women.
Hypothetical state of emergency, eh? Yeah ok one of those comes around maybe we can talk about renaming the kids right before you go down with the ship or whatever. In the meantime, there’s a 99 percent chance your wife is the one sacrificing her life right now for the needs of you and the kids, so shut up.*
*Comment may not be true in a 21st century family, but I’ve had a rough fucking week with a tyrannical 2-year-old and a baby and a crabby husband and I am not feeling sympathetic to anyone right now.
I have gotten a notification about my blood donation being used! I’m not sure they do it all the time or in every area, but on at least a couple of recent donations I’ve gotten a follow-up email from the Red Cross telling me what hospital my donation had gone to and that it had been used. I’m a regular blood donor anyway, but I definitely thought it was cool and it would encourage me to donate more in the future.
I’ve gotten notifications twice now, too! The first time it was sent to Denver, and the second time it was used locally at the University of Minnesota.
Signs you’ve been studying too much for your graduate school exams this week: “Why would anyone want to bang a Cyclops? Even Galatea didn’t want to get with Polyphemus…” (Cue *headdesk*)
Hey dude with your “matriarchal goddess culture” BS, did you know that that comes from anti Amazon BS dating back to Roman times? This myth articulates what the Romans decided mythical Amazon culture was like, pretty much a mirror image to their own culture, which held women in bondage, (good only for sex and as breeding stock), killed female babies by exposing them, and altogether treated women as less than human.
Some men are afraid of the imaginary “matriarchal Goddess culture” because they think women will do to men what men have done to women since the dawn of time.
Isn’t it a thing that the oppressing group always fear that the oppressed will rise up and treat the oppressors the way they were treated?
“Homophobia: the fear that other men will treat you the way you treat women.”
Boom there it is.
Yessssss! But the gender role reversal in Amazon myths wasn’t just a subject of disgust. It was also a kind of imaginary escapism for the women and girls who lived in those oppressive conditions– a way to picture what it would be like if the tables were turned. Basically, Amazon myths = the original “kill all men” jokes.
“Lydia, did you know those man-hating warrior Amazons kill men whenever they see them, except for those few men they bring home for sex and then dismiss? Such terrible, terrible women.
“Ah yes, Claudius, how…terrible. I’m shocked and appalled that any women could do that. It’s dreadful, really it is. *dreamy sigh*”
LOVE THE PUPPY PICS but how did you bring that puppy into a bar and not immediately have like 100 strangers crowding around to pet her???
Many many thanks to all of the support and love from the Toast! I’ve had a busy morning, but I deeply appreciate it!
Me right now, in my mind:
GO HIEU GO HIEU
Cyclops seems thoughtful. He’d remember your birthday, but he’d also gently remind you about your Mom’s birthday, because he’d know that you’ve been so busy lately and you tend to overlook such details.
With Wolverine, everything would always be about Wolverine. You’re barely even there, a side column in a glossy magazine with Wolverine on the cover. Sooner or later you’d be killed by one of his enemies, just so he’d have an excuse to go on a vengeance-filled rampage and stab a bunch of ninjas.
That Miss Major interview is awesome beyond words and why have I never heard of her until now?
I liked it a lot, but also I was sort of bothered by how dismissive she is of gay people? I don’t know. Maybe overanalyzing a bit?
Also I hate myself for even saying this, and she is really funny and amazing.
Getting notifications whenever my donated blood was used would be great. It feels like it’s less workable in a bigger population than Sweden, though (I don’t want to be partly responsible for causing the NHS to collapse under the weight of its demands!).
I'm very fond of Soule's run on She-Hulk, especially Angie and Hei-Hei.
Scott Summers was portrayed (at least in the early years of the X-Men) as being incredibly disciplined, which you'd expect from someone who was both an orphan who wanted to please his adoptive "father", Charles Xavier, and also someone who knew that he could accidentally kill a bunch of people if his glasses fell off (and nearly did, at least once). Basically, his life consisted of working out, practicing in the Danger Room, coming up with routines for his fellow students (and getting upset if'/when they didn't take them as seriously as he did), and moping over Jean Grey.