Could her ears have more floof? No.
stop shooting children holding toy guns
Watching rom-coms as a black disabled woman:
On the DVD cases before me, the cover stars stand in an array of positions my body will never find itself. Their hands are on their hips challengingly; they laugh and gesture. Most are happy, clutching a co-star with a wide smile. Others are sad and pensive, their hands clasped neatly in front of them or placed behind their back. But it would take me a while to get my right hand to cooperate long enough for me to put it behind my back. I cannot pull off the sexy and dangerous pout either. My black disabled body—with its aching bones and bent fingers, a right leg that is an inch shorter than the left with its limp and limited motor skills—is not the body reflected on screen.
Racked is killin’ it right now, and I LOOOVED this:
Teatox reviews are all over the internet, and many of them are positive. Those on Amazon have customers raving they “lost 3 lbs after only 4 days of taking this product every morning”; people claim they have “a lot more energy than I usually do” and that their “bloating went down as well.” But you can also find plenty of complaints that label teatoxes as a scam, as well as accounts of the teas messing with menstrual cycles and affecting the efficacy of birth control. However, because few people actually file official reports with the FDA, choosing instead to contact companies directly or post comments online, Meyer says there is little the FDA can do.
“Unless there’s a safety signal, there’s no reason for us to take action,” she explains. “Which is why we tell people, ‘If you think you’ve been harmed, you need to report to us and not only to the manufacturer,’ because teatox companies don’t have to let us know what adverse events are happening. Unless people are dying, they don’t have to tell us about complaints they are receiving.”
I have a situation that is so out there I almost wouldn’t believe it if it wasn’t happening to me. The company I work at has three branches and around 100 employees. The owner of the company has a brother who needs a liver transplant. Two weeks ago, a company-wide memo went out that all employees would be required to undergo testing to see if they were a suitable liver donor for the owners brother. No exceptions.
Last week at the branch the owner works out of most of the time, his assistant went around to schedule days off for everyone so they could go get tested. People who declined were let go. One of these people was born with liver disease and therefore ineligible to donate. She had a doctor’s note. Other people also had medical reasons as well and some were just uncomfortable with the request and didn’t want to do it. One was pregnant. They were still terminated. My employer’s assistant has said that because our employment is at will, he can legally fire us.
While Donald often says that Melania would make a stellar First Lady, the former model offers little clue about what a move to the White House would mean for her. She once said she would be “traditional,” like Jackie Kennedy, and on the question of what causes she might support, she has noted she is already involved in “many, many charities.” She elaborated: “Many different charities involving children, involving many different diseases.”
NOPE:
On Tuesday night, the City Council of Oxford, Alabama unanimously approved a new ordinance that will punish individuals for using restrooms that do not match their biological sex as stated on their birth certificate. The policy is a direct response to Target indicating that trans people are welcome and will be respected in their stores.
According to the text of the ordinance, “citizens have a right to quite [sic] solicitude [sic] and to be secure from embarrassment and unwanted intrusion into their privacy while utilizing multiple occupancy bathroom or changing facilities by members of the opposite biological sex.”
THE LEMONADE FANFIC PART TWO:
Jay: Seriously
Ava: Shh, adulterer
Bey: I want the palace to suddenly flood with water and that’s when Jay is going to wake up.
Jay: I’m gonna wa-
Bey: You’re going to wake up.
Prince: Hey, I need somebody to go to the store and get so-
Taraji: WHY YOU ALIVE
but who IS the genius that is writing said fanfic?
Prince comes out of the house and asks for kale.
The whole idea of fanfiction is just taking stuff that already exists. You can either keep the story going or make your own alternate universe. Prince just passed and it would seem tasteless to me if I didn’t reference him. So, why not just bring him to life? I also hear he was vegan and liked vegetables, and I know kale is my least favorite vegetable. There’s nothing more vegan than kale. I think that would be his preferred vegetable.
obviously I read every word of this:
Afterward, Lee returned to London and to Greece, where she resumed her relationship with Onassis, though all was not perfect there. “I always thought Ari’s bathing trunks were too tight,” she said. “I told him so. I thought it was vulgar.”
A lady who I have chosen to believe created the bad U of P commercial left some huffy comments in moderation that I deleted bc whatever it’s my site sent us a VERY annoyed email, of which this is a small sample:
Come on: at least call us Yes Women.
I am still so shocked by all these bathroom bills. It’s so hateful and transparent and petty, and yet some people fall for it? It also led to an honest-to-god TERF surfacing on one of my friends’ facebook feeds. All I can say is that I’m happy I don’t have to live in their heads. Doesn’t sound like a fun place to be.
Also, have not one of these people ever been somewhere that has unisex bathrooms? My brother’s college has them, and I’ve seen them a handful of other places. Yet they never seem upset about bathrooms where you might actually, literally be sharing space with men/women. Plus I know I’m not the only woman who has used a men’s room when the line for the women’s was too long.
TL:DR- Trans women ARE women, but honestly, even if they WEREN’T, it wouldn’t be that big a deal. (these people, oddly, never seem bothered by the idea that trans men might be in men’s rooms)
Odd, isn’t it?
And yes, I wouldn’t mind sharing a bathroom either. I used a men’s room just last month because the women’s bathroom was occupied and I needed to go pretty badly.
See, I don’t want to share a bathroom because I’ve had many occasions to go to the restroom to get away from annoying male coworkers and bosses before. But I’m thinking that’s the only way to solve this since we’re not going to be able to get these crazy people to stop passing these laws anytime soon.
Yeah, my university last year had one unisex toilet which I frequently used, as it was closest to where I had most of my lectures – one room with sinks out in the open and three closed-off cubicles with the toilets in. All it meant was that sometimes I’d be queuing for a cubicle behind a man, or using the sink next to one. It was fine.
Honestly I think most of the people panicking about this don’t even realize that trans men exist.
Or don’t care, because it’s just penises that are the problem. Either from a sexual assault perspective or a gender-conforming perspective. No penis =/= no threat, so they don’t care about regulating people who weren’t born with penises.
And it’s only cis women who are at risk from the penises. A trans woman is going to be just fine with all of the penises in the men’s loos!
It’s true. The only risk is that people with penises will put them inside of vaginas. Literally anywhere else a penis winds up is irrelevant, and the only “victims” who matter are wives, daughters, and mothers (as long as they were born with vaginas).
Just like all other segregation, it’s a way to pretend to do something about rape culture by deflecting it onto people who are in no way the problem. Regulating the people who present an actual threat might offend somebody with some real social power and leverage.
For a semester in college I lived in a residence college with mixed-gender bathrooms. Including showers. The only trouble we ran into was when one of the idiot boys on our floor got into a prank war with another floor and our bathroom fixtures got smeared with peanut butter.
I don’t think this is the kind of disruption the bathroom regulators are worried about.
Yeah, all three years I lived in university accommodation it was in the form of houses owned by my college, with students of various sexes in individual rooms and bathrooms that were shared by all residents. Once someone in one of the student residences pooed on the floor, and nobody ever owned up (our JCR president had to clean it), but I don’t feel like single-sex toilets would have prevented that.
I haven’t been anywhere that has unisex bathrooms (except if it’s an entire room) and I feel they’re weird. I’ve spent decades using split bathrooms get off my line.
I don’t OBJECT to them, and I would use them, and I do object to all these bathroom bills, and I’ve snuck into the men’s also and have in the past seen men in the women’s room because it was the one with the changing table, but I find unisex rooms weird.
Every residential bathroom in a private home is a unisex bathroom.
And unisex bathrooms in college dorms have been around since the late 1970s. This is NOT A THING to be concerned about.
No, but I get it, usually when you’re in the bathroom in your house nobody else is in there. Women do have like a smoke screen in front of all their private things like putting on makeup, periods, etc that happens in the bathroom. I have to admit that I also do rather like separate bathrooms, or those bathrooms that are totally individual. I wouldn’t really like walking into a bathroom full of men. But probably this is my socialization talking.
I also kind of agree with you here. I’ve heard about the gross gossip that goes on in the men’s room at work, and I don’t really want to be exposed to that. Or have the gross guys watch me check that my skirt hasn’t gotten tucked into the waistband of my tights, apply makeup, etc.
NOT ALL MEN, yes, but there are certain coworkers who make my skin crawl and I don’t want to give them ANY chance to comment on what I’m doing in the bathroom.
(I’d suck it up, though, and deal with it the same way I deal with them in every other part of my life. Just because it might make me uncomfortable does not mean other people shouldn’t have safe bathroom experiences!)
I just want to be able to fart without anyone else in the world hearing it echo through the porcelain bowl.
There are significant differences in privacy between (a) a single-occupancy room where people typically go in one at a time, (b) shared bathrooms with completely private individual stalls, and (c) shared rooms with separate stalls where you can see in on the sides, underneath, etc.
Considering the number of creepy guys who take up-skirt photos, etc., I wouldn’t necessarily feel comfortable sharing the latter with cis men. Depends on the setting, and how much you know and trust the people around you.
There’s a bar where I went to grad school that had b) and I can confirm it was both a total non-issue and also a great place to sneak away for nookie while your friends are distracted by drinks.
I mean, what?
I hadn’t been in a unisex bathroom until I was 21 and went to Europe. It was weird for about the first minute and a half and then I realized they were great, not only were lines shorter but if I were with a male partner or friend they could hold a broken door closed for me or grab toilet paper if my stall was out. Which is to say I have a lot of privilege because those are the upsides for me, not anything about gender presentation, needing to use the bathroom with someone who presents as another gender because of age or disability, etc.
Not gonna lie–it’s my firm opinion that having men *also* face the traditionally long lines for the restroom that women do would do them a world of good. Gender-neutral bathrooms for all!
Yes, yes, YES.
I wish I could believe that this would lead to greater empathy, rather than men just pissing casually into jugs.
Well, the root of these ridiculous bathroom bills is transmisogyny. On the other hand, trans men have access to male privilege, even though they still face transantagonism. So, bizarrely, even if some asshat doesn’t believe trans men are men, they also don’t believe trans men are going to commit some heinous crimes against cis men in the bathroom, either.
A relative of mine posted a link to that horrible, manipulative Federalist article allegedly written by a rape survivor who was terrified that men would sneak into bathrooms and molest children with the caption “Food for thought” and I basically hulked out on her. But it has a happy ending because she took the link down and sent me a message basically saying “Oops, I got duped. I’ll check my sources better next time!” but she also mentioned that she has a grand idea about how to solve the whole trans bathroom crisis and she’s going to blog about it and I should stay tuned and I am cringing because I love her and she’s a well-meaning lady but even just imagining what a wealthy suburban middle-aged white woman with no ties to the queer community thinks is the answer to this issue makes me break out into hives.
Special trans bathrooms, I’d bet money on it.
she also mentioned that she has a grand idea about how to solve the whole trans bathroom crisis and she’s going to blog about it and I should stay tuned
We now refer to this as “Trumping.”
I don’t want to subtract anyone’s sympathy from the plight of the trans in the whole bathroom bill clusterfuck.
What I don’t understand is how the proponents of these bills fail to see that they make restroom use unsafe for EVERYBODY. If the prerequisite for using the loo is that you have to prove your anatomical sex somehow, how does that work? What if some persistent jerk thinks I faked my ID?
I would rather pee in a stall next to a man also peeing in a stall than prove my anatomical sex to a cop outside the bathroom the door.
There was news already of a butch lesbian being removed from a bathroom by cops, which is simply horrifying.
It’s kind of like how the rash of 2004 anti-same-sex marriage bills were often worded in ways that denied benefits to a lot of heterosexual couples, which nobody had considered before.
It’s so weird! I’m not from the US, but in my first year of university, we had co-ed bathrooms at our dorm. 5 toilet stalls, 5 shower stalls and communal sinks shared between, idk, 25-30 of us? It was a complete non-issue; I think every bathroom in the entire hall of 250 people was co-ed.
The only problem we ever had was people having sex in the showers but hey, we all had roommates so everyone was reasonably sympathetic.
Do the people who write these bills even know what women’s restrooms are like? That we have stalls, with doors?
So that tweet about “more sitting Members of Congress have been arrested for bathroom misconduct” reminded me that ‘hookup’ men’s rooms are A Thing. And so I’m working on a sarcastic punchline about maybe if we just point out to the Dumb Politician Men that NO ONE tries to hook up with undercover police officers in women’s room, that’s Not A Thing, that will just put all this confusion to rest.
Since I broke my foot, I’ve been using the bathrooms closest to my office more, two single-use bathrooms which are gendered. So I’ve been going in the Men’s if the Women’s is already occupied, whereas often when more mobile, I’d walk over to the other, big Women’s restroom just to, you know, go for a little walk to break up the monotony of the day. But I was talking to someone in the hallway yesterday, and we were both like, “Why are these even labelled?” Because, well, why? Wouldn’t it be easier for all single-use bathrooms to just be unisex?
I have been saying this for YEARS. It makes no sense whatsoever.
In DC, it’s actually the law that single-stall bathrooms are gender-neutral. This leads to great moments in misandry like the other day when both bathrooms in a restaurant were occupied and two men tried to breeze past the line of three women only to discover that they, too, had to wait their turn.
This story warms my heart.
I lovelovelove this law and it’s another reason I grump at friends who try to convince me to hang out in the suburbs, because I can’t tweet at the Office of Human Rights when they have literally terrible bathroom signage out there.
The silver lining is that I’ve also been pleasantly surprised by some of the FB friends who have posted “look, you’ve already shared a bathroom with a trans* person and didn’t even know it so STFU” messages. People that I wouldn’t expect to.
The stall doors lock, y’know, people? It’s not like you have to look at ANYONE’S junk when you’re going to the bathroom.
I’m frustrated by how hyped people are getting about the nonexistent risk here and shriek “If there was even a fraction of a percent chance, IT MUST BE STOPPED.” Okay. Cool. So are you going to pull your kids off their sports teams or after school activities? Stop driving them places in cars? Because there’s way more known risk for kids to be abused by authority figures or get hurt/killed in car accidents, but you seem to think that’s an acceptable risk.
My dad played one of the Old Person roles in a high school musical recently (which is a whole tangential argument I won’t go into here), and one of the girls was doing theater because her parents wouldn’t let her do sports because of the danger. She managed to cut off the tip of her finger in a door during intermission one evening.
(she was still in costume, and had on long gloves, and doctors re-attached the finger. She’s fine now)
This reminds me of the kid in “A Mighty Wind” whose parents make him wear a helmet at chess club.
Her dad’s a paramedic and her mom’s an ER nurse, so I think they see all the worst aspects of team sports.
Aha!
My mom is also an ER nurse, and I mentioned on a previous article how I’m permanently terrified of things like lawnmowers because I’m convinced I’ll mow my feet off
Both of her parents were in the audience that night, btw.
There’s a pic of Target urinals going around because someone put a caption on it saying their Target replaced a stall in the women’s bathroom with 2 urinals. And people are outraged! But literally no one is suggesting this! UUGHHHH
I just overheard some guys discussing this approvingly in the office breakroom and NOPED right out of there
Do they not realize that all the toilets in the Ladies are surrounded by cubicles? We can’t see what anyone else is doing in there. Just let folks pee in peace!
“My rights to free speech are being infringed!” IS THIS THE GOVERNMENT? NO? THEN GO CRY ABOUT IT SOMEWHERE ELSE. Like Civics class so you can learn about free speech.
God, can you imagine what it would be like if the Toast DID control the government? There would be a lot less stupidity.
I’ll vote for that platform!
People who don’t understand that their 1st (and 2nd) Amendment right’s protect them ONLY FROM THE GOVERNMENT are the worst. Yes, a business can prevent you from bringing your firearm onto their premises. Yes, your work can fire you for going on Twitter and bitching about their policy. No, the GOVERNMENT cannot stop you from standing on the street corner telling people they are going to hell (but the public would really appreciate it if you wouldn’t, guy who is there every Saturday while I am trying to get my tea and donut). Please stop claiming that you are being prosecuted by businesses (nope) or other private citizens (lol) who tell you to shut up.
It’s right here in my copy of the Constitution! “Nicoles shall delete no comments abridging the freedom of speech of any commenters.”
…I might need to find a new place to buy my constitutions.
Um sounds like you are forgetting amendment 1.5, arguably the most important part of the Bill of Rights: “The right of the people to be secure, loud, and joyous in their own idiocy shall not be violated; furthermore, no person shall be held to answer for an opinion, man.”
this comment is 10/10, would like twice.
Vote for Mallory and Nicole as our glorious Empresses! And a tasty freeze peach in every pot!
Has Deleted Commenter ever read The Toast?!? I think not or else she would know that it’s all No Men comments around here
Oh, thank God. I had gleaned some details of that 13-year old boy (not “young man”, BPD) who was shot from Twitter last night and assumed he’d been killed. So I’m actually a little bit relieved. Still, real gun or not, they shot a kid who had done nothing wrong and was running away from them – twice! And the company line is no department policy was violated? You better look at your goddamn policy then, you… I’m going to stop right there or else the language is going to turn blue.
So the law is: cops are legally empowered to shoot people running away from them if they believe they are an immediate danger to the community.
Now of course this is obviously a fucking useless rule because A) the is no way to ascertain the cops actual state of mind at the time B) “if they’re running from cops of course they’re criminals so of course they’re an immediate danger”.
But yeah, if you run from a cop they can legally shoot you and will basically never be charged with anything.
Oh, I get the way the law has unfolded, as has become painfully clear as more light has been shone on police shootings over the past couple years. I’m just looking at the details in this story and am amazed people can see it (including the cops) and go, “I fail to see the problem?”
If he’d stood there, they’d have aimed better. He’s alive because he ran, and I hate that this is the worlds we live in, where a child playing with a toy has to make a life or death decision.
Amen.
And the conversation is going to be all about whether the gun looked real or why it didn’t have an orange cap on the barrel. When it should be how are we going to fix things to where black children aren’t rightly afraid of the police?
I know, as a grown woman person, I should try to take the high road, but that email from that person regarding the U of P commercial just makes me sigh a very long and very weary “fuck you” because good GRAVY, I am tired.
Speaking of Racked, I’m really enjoying their article about the @BarbieStyle Instagram for a nice fluffy refresher today.
Those of us of a certain age will remember the NOW That’s What I Call Music series, and I would like to let you all know that there is now a Broadway version.
I have never felt more alive.
This is amazing, thank you for sharing! #broadwaynerd
I know a lot of people stopped watching this season of Kimmy Schmidt, but their take on the NOW series had me literally crying with laughter.
I THINK I CAN SWIM
I deeeeefinitely did not get that far into this season, myself :-/ but it is good to know that there is something redeeming!
I’m pretty sure that I have a fin!
RIP Art Smelly
The back half of the season is absolutely hilarious. If I’m being honest, so is the front half. Ellie Kemper’s reactions to anything and everything give me so much joy.
The fact that both Titus and Kimmy are obsessed with buying tapes is one of the best parts of that show.
Dammit. I thought you meant they were making a Broadway play about the NOW That’s What I Call Music series. (No, I don’t know what that would entail, but was SO excited about finding out).
I’m really disappointed 🙁
I also thought this and wish to register my disappointment. Clearly there is a potential audience for such a project! Get on it, Broadway visionaries!
I thought the same thing! I was trying to picture it and was just delighted at the endless possibilities. Performing songs in the style of the music videos but with some kind of overarching plot to connect them? Something about the absurdity of 45 vols of Now That’s What I Call Music? I just really want this now.
Just to be clear, they still churn those things out every 6 months or so. We get a lot of copies of various NOWs at Target.
I have seen exactly one person buy a CD at Target in three years (~60 year old woman Braxton/Babyface: Love, Marriage & Divorce) so I don’t know where they all go but we do get a lot of them.
Also Space Jam. Near as I can reckon we sell more copies of Space Jam than any other movie past the ‘new release’ window.
A good friend and I have a hobby that is basically ‘get drunk on cocktails and read the Wikipedia pages for old NOW compilations’. It is an excellent hobby.
Does anybody enjoy quiet solicitude in a public bathroom? All the ones near me are full of farts, on-the-toilet cell phone convos, and vaping undergrads who think they’re being subtle.
who on earth has a phone conversation on the toilet in a public bathroom?!
Soooooo many people. Including one of my former coworkers, who would begin a call in the office, go to the bathroom, and return to the office – all while continuing to chatter away like there was nothing unusual about this.
So many germs, so uncomfortable for the person on the other end of the line, ew
More people than you can imagine. I used to work with someone who was *always* on the phone to the extent that emails got sent round if you ever saw her walking round the office not on the phone, and I was several times in the bathroom at the same time and listening to her phone calls as she peed.
I often try to work this out, but A of all) the only regular phone calls I have are with my mother and neither of us would dream of participating in a toilet call and B of all) nobody else I know would dream of using their cell phone to make a conversational, non-parental phone call. I am insufficiently qualified to answer this question. These people are not my people.
I admit to full out passive aggression when I hear a Toilet Caller in the restroom. I flush, again and again and again. Often there’s an annoyed “wait, there’s too much noise in here” and Toilet Caller exits her stall.
I’m so petty.
I hate to admit it, but I do this too.
GROSSSSSS
DO NOT GET ME STARTED
Not necessarily on the toilet, but most of the offices on my floor are open plan, so the bathroom is the only place a lot of people can go to make a personal call… Which makes it super awkward to go and pee when someone is arguing about their kid’s medical appointment or something!
SAME, my workplace is like that too and I always feel soooo awkward walking into the bathroom and seeing someone on their phone like… hey… gonna go pee now.
The same thing happens at my office. When I have to make private phone calls, I can usually go out to my car in the parking lot, but if I have to leave a message and have them call me back, sometimes the only semi-private place I can get to quickly is the bathroom. It sucks.
This is doubly monstrous because they could just text!!!
My dad did this when he worked as a long-haul trucker. My poor mom.
Everyone in my office, apparently…
TOO DAMN MANY PEOPLE. I am uncomfortable enough with shared public toilet facilities. I do not need my neuroses aggravated by some yutz gabbing next to me while I’m trying to do my business in peace. I would think that loud flushing sounds would make it hard to hear, in any case.
My mum shared a story just the other day of trying to work out where a voice was coming from as she queued for the toilet, and then seeing a woman emerge from a cubicle still talking into her phone.
Quite right. My solicitude attitude requires quite the quiet environment.
…for me to poop on.
But seriously, if someone actually got arrested for violating this ordinance don’t you think they could appeal any prosecution due to grammatical errors? Like we all KNOW the intention of this thing but it doesn’t grammatically state it so it’s unenforceable. I wonder if the back office peon who was tasked with writing this nonsense up sabotaged it on purpose… Yes, this is my fantasy and I’m sticking to it.
A woman I occasionally encounter (never face-to-face) in a restroom at work has a habit of apologizing for her farts/bathroom noises. Out loud I say, “We’re in a *bathroom*, no worries.” I cringe, though, because my version of the social contract says we pretend no one else exists in a shared bathroom situation.
The public restroom social contract is a Thing for me.
oh god yes. Like, even if I am with someone and we are carrying on a conversation when we go into the public bathroom, the second one person enters a stall, we have to be dead to each other until both people are out of the stalls again. (My mom doesn’t understand this aspect of the social contract and it drives me nuts.)
This was an important rule that I had to establish with one of my best friends and hall-mates in college. She liked to talk in basically all circumstances, including the restroom, and very early in the friendship I was like “no. if we are in the restroom at the same time, even if we arrive there together and are talking when we walk in, the talking must pause until we are washing our hands at least.” She was totally cool with that, though she occasionally forgot.
I heard someone wanking in the toilets at work a while ago, I’m sure of it. Who does that?
dear god no
No quiet for me, please! I want ALL the loud fans and other brown noise to drown out the, ahem, other brown noise.
I love bathrooms in apartments/houses where the fan turns on when the light does. Then I don’t even feel self-conscious turning the fan on to cover any sounds.
I approve of quiet solicitude in the bathroom, in that way where if somebody needs toilet paper under the stall wall, you help a sister out, or if somebody’s crying, you ask if she’s ok in that kind of hesitant way that makes it clear you respect the Cone of Silence.
solitude, OTOH, is something I’ve almost never encountered in a public restroom.
I love imagining Sansa sitting in a window, just distractedly brushing her ears.
Now imagining Sansa actual Stark, sitting in a window, distractedly brushing her ears.
Today in (Feminist) History!
(Today is a GOOD one, I’m so mad I never learned this in school.)
Today is a GOOD ONE, Toasties! On this day, April 28th, in 1915, the International Congress of Women convened in The Hague, in the Netherlands. Also referred to as the Women’s Peace Congress, it was created at the invitation of a Dutch women’s suffrage organization to women’s rights activists all around the woman. More than 1,200 female delegates from 12 countries (including the U.S., Britain, Belgium, Germany, Italy, Poland, and Austria-Hungary), attended the Congress. Based on the idea that a peaceful international assembly of women could have a moral effect on “belligerent countries”, it was dedicated to advocating for peace and resolving World War 1. Some of of the woman present from the American delegation included Jane Addams (co-founder of the Hull House) and Emily Balch (a professor of Sociology at Wellesley College), both of whom later received Nobel Peace Prizes, and Alice Hamilton, who in 1919 became the first female faculty member at Harvard University. (Source)
The Congress resulted in the group adopting a plan for “continuous mediation with belligerent nations”. In line with this, they selected a delegation of women who met with government leaders in involved countries to discuss an end to the war. As women who held no political positions, they presented themselves as unofficial envoys, which allowed them more leniency in meeting a wide range of officials whom they had very frank, honest discussions with. Though their critics labeled them as “Peacettes” [eye roll], and said they couldn’t be taken seriously since they were woman [of course], they saw themselves as speaking on behalf of the women who had lost fathers, husbands, and children to the war. In the end, many of their proposals are still used as guidelines for negotiations between hostile nations to this day. In addition, many of their proposals and points could be found within President Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points, and their congress/delegation sparked the eventual creation of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, which still exists today. (Source)
Jane Addams and Alice Hamilton actually also published a first-hand report of this Congress, available to purchase as a book still today: Women at the Hague: The International Peace Congress of 1915.
How had I never head of this before? You’d think they’d put this in Dutch history classes, at least…
Thank you for doing these, btw! It’s been very enlightening so far 🙂
I KNOW, I’m so upset I never learned this.
And thanks! It’s been fun. 😀
I would ALSO semi-relatedly like to let you all know that after posting the first one of these (with Sybil Luddington) on tumblr, a bunch of anti-feminist dudes found it (presumably by checking the ‘feminist’ tag on tumblr because ofc) and started reblogging it getting mad at me because “feminism didn’t exist then, stop claiming people for your hateful and horrible movement” blah blah. (Because you know, as feminists, we cannot celebrate any women who existed and did things before the word ‘feminist’ was coined.)
Anyway, I was listening to Lemonade at the time so I just laughed, and then blocked them while singing the ‘middle fingers up’ section from Sorry.
PERFECT DELIGHTFUL RESPONSE
first of all: this is an awesome series and I love it, I mostly lurk/am too late to comment but I appreciate it!
Second, how did I not know that Jane Addams won a Nobel Peace Prize? Go Jane Addams!
Third, the word feminist was totally in use by the 1910s, so even if we couldn’t celebrate pre-feminist women, we could still celebrate the International Congress of Women!
Thank you!!! Someone else mentioned to me that they are often late and don’t always see these the same day, so I made a wordpress blog where I’m gonna post them every day, just for kicks (and for posterity and to make it easier to scroll back). If you’re interested anyway, it’s: http://femhistory.wordpress.com
And YES, she was the second woman ever to win one!! https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/lau… So cool.
“Belligerent Nations” needs to be a more commonly-used term in these currently-trying times.
Yes haha, I love that. I feel like we can apply it to other things, too, like Belligerent Persons.
oh, please never stop writing these. you are making my day. <3
Free speech. You keep saying that phrase. I do not think it means what you think it means.
hehe
Inconceivable!
This xkcd comic has been on my Tumblr dash a whole lot lately.
The hover-over text is so good and important too!
GUYS. Missouri was trying to get a constitutional amendment on the ballot in November that would have legally protected businesses who discriminate against same sex couples.
IT FAILED IN COMMITTEE. TWO REPUBLICANS VOTED AGAINST IT.
I am SO PROUD right now. It is a shamefully small victory to be proud of, BUT IT FAILED.
I didn’t even know WHAT THE HELL TO DO YESTERDAY when my partner told me. We spent the afternoon essentially being too shocked to function because how did this happen in this state? The existence of the bill was not surprising (we’d been following since the filibuster), but having two freaking Missouri Republicans vote against it was.
Yayyyyyyyy! That’s awesome!
I’m taking my victories where I can get them these days, small or no.
YES. This article made me cry this morning: http://themissouritimes.com/29023/after-tearful-d…
omfg, the quote from one of the bill’s supporters… “What kind of person am I if I just walk out of here on the path of least resistance? I want to be the representative who stood for something.”
YES WE’RE SO VERY PROUD OF YOU FOR STANDING UP TO THOSE MEAN GAY PEOPLE. WHAT A BIG MAN YOU ARE.
The statements from the bill’s supporters are so incoherent. It’s unbelievable.
I’ve made myself close the window because I kept rereading that and getting awfully sniffly. I work in downtown Jeff and if I could swing it on my lunch period, I’d go hand deliver thank you cards.
Right? I want to send them flowers.
Shamefully small, maybe, but I say take what you can get and run with it because that might be all you can get.
(Don’t mind me, I’m grouchy because over here in Tennessee, the governor just signed in a bill allowing therapists to refuse clients based on strongly held beliefs. Sigh.)
I live in Missouri. When I was in high school, Sen. Jolie Justus came to talk to our GSA. She said that for years, because she is a lesbian, it was very important for her to introduce and sponsor the proposed MONA (Missouri Non-Discrimination Act) changes that include gender identity and sexual orientation as protected classes. Through her time in the Senate, she made friends with a Republican Senator who, before knowing her, was very grossed out by and morally and politically opposed to civil rights for gay people. Through their friendship, he completely changed his mind about LGBT issues, and now sponsors or co-sponsors the new MONA every year to stand up to the homophobes in his party and as an act of solidarity with Sen. Justus. I don’t remember this guys name. It made me really happy, as a high school baby dyke, to hear this story and have a tiny sliver of hope about my home state’s willingness to treat me as a full citizen.
THE LIVER THING. THE ONLY TIME I’VE SEEN SOMETHING THAT HAS MADE ME SAY ‘I CAN’T EVEN’.
On a serious note, for the first article I saw about the child who was shot in Baltimore there was a big old argument in the comments about the fact that the gun looked real and so maybe the police were justified in shooting him. Which is obviously ridiculous, but it struck me that even a lot of people who disagreed with that seemed to think that the only way for police to deal with someone who has a gun is to shoot them. While the only instances I can think of from here in the UK of police shooting people is when that person had a gun, or when the police thought they had a gun, it’s pretty rare and it’s a LAST resort rather than a first one. I don’t want to get all condescending European about US gun laws – we’d be the same about guns if our laws had been shaped in the same way, obvs – but it is striking to me that those are some people’s assumptions about reasonable force.
People manage to forget all the time that shooting a suspect should be a last resort for a policeman. A good cop only draws his weapon when his or others’ lives are in immediate danger and someone is brandishing a weapon with an intent to harm someone. Especially because as soon as you draw a gun as a cop you’re more likely to use it.
Not to mention that here in the US, it’s not uncommon for a white man to be taken into custody without him getting shot, even if it guy has a gun, so it’s not like they don’t know how to do it or are unwilling to do it. (But if he appears to be disabled or have mental health issues, he’s getting shot even if white).
Dylan Fucking Roof.
ahahhahahahhahaha ‘censorship’
Read this great interview with a Indonesian female comedian (only specifying ‘female’ because it’s relevant in this case) who actually faces REAL issues with possible censorship and I immediately tweeted that every rightwing baby who thinks they’re being censored because a website won’t publish their stupid comment should be forced to read it in the hope they might be able to gain some goddam perspective.
https://www.indexoncensorship.org/2016/04/shazia-…
Guys guys guys were you already aware of this insanely catchy Call Me Maybe/Nietzsche parody? It’s amazing!
That is the best thing to happen to me this morning.
Bless you for bringing this to my attention.
I know that loving football is problematic ideologically- however, there is no greater satisfaction than beating a bunch of guys at fantasy football and gloating for an entire year over it.
Why?
Because those are the kind of questions thrown at you all the time.
rant over
#banmen
(I guess this means I’m NOT a “Yes Men”, deleted person! Take that!)
I got kicked out of my ex’s fantasy a-league competition because I, token girlfriend, won the comp ahead of a whole group of soccer nerds that spend most of their free time on sports forums.
it’s not my fault it took like two seconds of looking at the scoring system to figure out that buying the most mediocre defender in a solid team would still give you plenty of points AND free up money to put out and out star strikers in the forward line where individual brilliance actually made a difference.
Plus, my team was named after a place in one of the Foundation novels, so it’s not like I had zero nerd cred.
I want to use “Shh, adulterer” ALL THE TIME. How many times can you use it before it gets old? I don’t know, LET’S FIND OUT.
Lemming Following is definitely my new band name.
I will head up the cover band of Lemming Following, naturally titled Yes Men Following.
That Melania Trump article… It had some interesting stuff, but on the whole I found the way it was written to be really off putting.
“Trump shot back in a cryptic, menacing message that he would “spill the beans” on Heidi Cruz and then re-tweeted two photos, side by side: one, a mid-sentence Heidi, looking like a gargoyle; another, a bronzed, blue-eyed Melania, looking like a fox.”- ugh. Why is this a paragraph that someone was allowed to print and publish?
The whole thing just seemed really condescending. I also felt like it had a lot of “hey we have a legitimate excuse to talk and speculate about the life of this rich hot lady” moments.
There’s an update [trigger warning for sexual abuse] on the awful boyfriend who used astrology to get out of chores!
Did you see the yesterday (now deleted) about the poor girl who’s awful boyfriend deleted her 76 page honors thesis 5 days before it was due? He even deleted a backup on Dropbox apparently. Luckily he did not know about the copy she saved on a flash drive but wow what an insecure twerp that guy was. I’m waiting for that update.
Oh my….I’m feeling a little ragey about that and I haven’t even read it.
I’m not sure what my reaction would be to that, but it would be very ugly.
I feel like I’ve been slapped in the face and I haven’t even read this. She needs to leave him.
HOLY SHIT WHAT.
Thank goodness she had a backup he didn’t know about.
WRT the AaM thing that was mentioned above, I was visualizing hammering on a “Lawyer Up” button. For this thing, though? Jumping up and down on the “NUKE IT FROM ORBIT” button.
My boyfriend sent that to me yesterday, knowing I’m about to turn in the results of a year-long master’s level research project (and then graduate, yaaaay). We both agreed that if we were in the same boat, the thesis-writer would straight up murder the deleter.
Yup, I’m sitting here with a PhD thesis ready to submit once a bunch of paperwork gets processed, and if someone had deleted my thesis last week, my fury would know no bounds.
Also, congratulations on submitting your thesis!
I held my breath until she wrote about having other backups. Holy macaroni, if my dissertation would’ve been deleted in such a manner my screaming could be heard for miles around. HIT HIM WITH THE FULL MIGHT OF YOUR UNIVERSITY’S COMPLAINTS/ETHICS COMMITTEES AND RUUUUNNNN GIRL.
If there isn’t a law that he could be charged with for doing that, there SHOULD be.
All the blood just drained from my face.
Oh god oh god oh god oh god oh god
No jury in the land, swear to God.
Whoa.
I hate to sound cynical (no I don’t) but I’m definitely with the people that say, horrifying as his trauma is, I have very little faith that they’ll pull through this. If you can use some BS to manipulate your partner to the point where they’re packing to go, you can certainly keep doing it later. What will it be next time? He disrespected her time and time again, ignored what she needed, and lied to her. That does not bode well.
You don’t sound cynical to me. This situation was my marriage– he had a very similar traumatic childhood, but I couldn’t fix that, and it didn’t change how he behaved or how I felt about it. It didn’t end well, but boy am I glad it ended.
As I was packing to walk out on my ex, he ended up talking honestly about something awful that had happened to him in his childhood. I had known about it, and he was in therapy, but he had never discussed the details. That day he cried and cried and shook and talked and sobbed while I held him and told him it wasn’t his fault and that I believed him. He said it was the first time he’d ever been able to say it out loud.
I still walked out. It was the hardest thing in the world, and a year later I still feel guilty and have had to work through that decision in therapy, but it was absolutely the right thing to do. We had been together for 12 years at that point, and had never been capable of discussing it with me before. By the time I was actually packing, I was no longer capable of being his support person. His trauma simply didn’t change the fact that he had in turn treated me like shit for years. I told him that I loved him, and I believed him, and I wanted him to heal, but I couldn’t be the person that went with him on that journey.
It was possibly the most selfish decision of my life, but in the lead up I had found myself honestly thinking ‘well, maybe it’s just not my role in life to be happy. Maybe my job is to make him happy, and then I’ll be reincarnated and do things better in my next lifetime’, so current-me is SO GRATEFUL that past-me was able to ignore someone in so much pain. If I had stayed that day, I don’t know how long it would’ve taken me to work myself up to leave again, and I would probably still be there, trying to make myself smaller and smaller to make him happy.
tl;dr – plenty of people have been traumatised and not been manipulative abusive dicks to their partners.
oh, no… I almost don’t wanna click.
EDIT: Oh, that poor guy. 🙁
NGL, I would still dump him.
Has everyone seen the Hamilton tribute to Sweeney Todd? Because if not, you should rectify that immediately: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bruTOQoNtO4
I am saving it until after tonight, when I will have to try to convince 150 people that they cannot all fit into a room for which the fire code mandates a maximum of 75.
I am so, so sorry.
I can’t stop laughing at “Joanna’s not his daughter but, COME ON, THAT SHIT’S SICK.” Indeed it is! It is very sick.
Groff’s gigantic hat at the end! All of this is fantastic.
I generally have nothing but sisterly love and overwhelming regard for Lin Manuel Miranda, but the dark eyeliner and demented look are doing… things to me.
I have to go reflect on this.
never mind that – Daveed Diggs in an untucked shirt and tight vest…..
Hell yeah he is, but *that’s* been a problem this whole time.
Fair. True, and fair.
I think it’s seeing him in action in the vest. I’ve seen so many clips of him performing in costume(s), and stills of him smacking my gob in all manner of (un)dress, but performing in this getup… yes, indeed.
Perhaps I need to go rewatch and make sure that live action vest isn’t a bigger problem than I thought. Thank you for bringing my more focused attention to this urgent matter.
Ya’ll saw THE photo in the #Hamiltome, right? Good GOD. <fans self>
I am being VERY GOOD and waiting until Mother’s Day to be presented with the #Hamiltome. It is taking HEROIC RESTRAINT on my part.
Oh, you are in for a treat! (:
Please report back on your response to the photo, you will know it as soon as you see it!
This is so important and angry and beautifully written and Christ Jesus I want to show it to freeze peach commenter up there.
http://lithub.com/mona-eltahawy-how-to-fight-the-…
Jesus Christ, thank you so much for sharing that.
This is so beautiful and so important. Thank you for sharing.
This piece by Keah Brown is powerful and beautifully written. I wanted to quote a snippet, but there are so many lines that speak to me that I’d have to copy the whole thing. Thanks for linking!
Christ, what do these people think is happening in women’s rest rooms? We pee in stalls! I literally do not see or care about the genitalia of any person in the stall next to me. If a cis dude were in there, it would be exactly the same experience for me.
It’s almost like these laws have nothing to do with what’s going on in reality, but are just a way of shaming and punishing trans people and making their lives demonstrably harder.
And shaming and punishing gender non-conforming people, including e.g. butch lesbians who get enough funny looksi n public bathrooms as is. It’s all so fucked up.
My mom is very frightened of these laws because she often needs to take my adult brother into the women’s room with her… because he has visible special needs and can’t use the bathroom alone. Even in that scenario she says she’s gotten looks and comments that make her feel shitty. And while she’s never been afraid of violence she has been afraid of being kicked out of stores or hassled.
The whole thing is just so infuriating on so many levels and all it does is hurt people and ugh ugh ugh.
I wonder if things would go better if she takes him into the men’s, now that he’s an adult? I don’t really know, but it seems like men might be less upset/taken aback/whatever by an elderly lady accompanying an adult disabled man in the men’s, compared with women with the same scenario in the women’s. As a generalization women do have more fears & triggers & safety concerns around bathrooms/sexuality/whatever than men do.
It’s traditional to take little boys into the women’s, but I can see how it might be a better adaptation to go into the men’s with an adult, even if it is a little outside her own comfort zone to be there. (Sounds like it might be getting outside of your brother’s comfort zone to be in the women’s, anyway – and she might be going to the women’s out of habit).
Just a practical thought — obviously this is just the BATHROOM folks people have human needs & it is wretched that your mother has gotten grief over this anywhere, in either bathroom.
And much, much, much admiration from an internet stranger to your mother for her loving care of your brother!
Yes, and one of the issues with these anti-trans laws (in addition to being horrible discrimination) is that they are often just terribly written laws that have all kinds of additional consequences. I read an article that suggested that one of the laws (Mississippi, maybe?) could have been read to allow discrimination against unmarried couples who were having sex if it was against the business person’s religion.
…almost.
Also, how are they even going to enforce this law? I don’t carry my birth certificate around in my wallet to show to the potty police. : /
I mean I guess I know. They will ticket you or something and make you prove yourself. Lovely.
Right – it’s going to be a license to harass anyone that some random stranger decides is not sufficiently gender conforming.
Is it not common courtesy to flash everyone your genitals before you enter the stall? Where are you from??
I have regularly passed for a man since I was a teenager, but use women’s facilities and am nonbinary. I was never worried about the bathroom before, and now I keep a mental list of “safe” bathrooms and make sure to appear nonthreatening because I’m scared. If I use a bathroom where I’m not known, at work, I get looked at suspiciously now.
How freaking ridiculous is that? Me and my IBD just want to go to the bathroom in peace ffs.
ding ding ding
Can confirm, as someone at a college with multi-stall all-gender restrooms in the dorms, that the only time I have felt uncomfortable with a cis dude being in the same bathroom was the time a couple was kissing in front of the sinks and I had to ask them to move so I could wash my hands.
I have found cis men in the ladies’ room before. Other than the very polite reluctant Dad, I asked them to leave. How polite I was and if I did so alone depended on if the men seemed genuinely confused or not. They left. The end.
How do you know they were cis, though? I genuinely believe that creepy cis men might lurk women’s bathrooms but I’m not 100% sure how you’d know they were cis guys and I’m trying to find a healthy and helpful middle ground between these two factors myself.
Fair enough, but the most recent example peed standing up with the stall door open. Another example peed in the sink (that one was in a bar, the first was at work). These seem pretty unambiguous to me.
Open Thread thing – Toasties, my breast reduction is scheduled for tomorrow morning! I’m as ready as I can be, but pretty nervous. If you have a spare minute this time tomorrow, send some good thoughts my way! xox
Good thoughts headed your way! Best of luck!!!!
A multitude of excellent thoughts for you!
holding you in the light!
ta-ta to your ta-tas, as my friend told me on the eve of my breast reduction.
Good thoughts to you!
I’m so excited for you! Take a good look at them today and then say goodbye to them, knowing that you are headed towards bigger (smaller) and better things!
Good luck and keep us updated as you heal!
Good thoughts!
Good thoughts, best wishes, and Jedi hugs if you want them!
You will love it and never look back.
(Best surgery i ever had)
Every woman I know who got a reduction says it was the best decision they ever made!
I’m currently reading Rosemary: The Hidden Kennedy daughter, so that Jackie Kennedy/Lee Radziwell story is fascinating (also seeing some interesting parallels with the Melania Trump profile). I didn’t know much about the Kennedy’s prior to the book I’m reading, and basically it kind of sounds like they were terrible and I’m confused why so many people love them.
They WERE terrible. Really, they were the living embodiment of the Buchanans from The Great Gatsby, just totally careless people who smashed things up and counted on their money to get them out of it (spoiler alert: it always did). I feel bad that so many of them died unpleasant deaths, but sheesh. They weren’t ‘good’.
THE WORSE FAMILY IN THE WORLD (okay in the top five worst families in the world)
Well, JFK was a handsome man, see.
The only upside of my puppers deciding I needed to be awake this early is that I can actually catch the beginning of the link roundup comment party. So of course I can’t think of anything interesting to say.
OT: I am in the midst of a move that is kicking my ass, despite being a generally good thing, and would very much appreciate any Toastie “moving sucks” sympathy anyone can muster.
Oh man, moving super sucks! I’m in the middle of it, too, and it’s generally terrible and expense. However, once it’s done and everything is taken care of, it’s pretty cool. It’s just, you know…getting there that sucks. 🙁
MOVING SUCKS OMG. I’m working on selling the house right now and OMG HATE.
Moving is the wooooorst. My mother-in-law was hesitant about us buying a house right out in our new city (because we “didn’t know it well enough yet to know where to buy”) and tried to convince us to rent for a few years first, but just the thought of having to move twice in as many years was enough for me to dismiss that as a plan.
We are the bad example that proves you right: We moved to a new city, found a rental (on the same premise your MIL raised), the rental was actually great and cheap and so we stayed there for four years. Now we’ve bought a place and the move is being SOOOO much worse than the cross-country move four years ago. All of which is say, good call on your part.
Oh man, that sucks. Good luck!
Saaaame, moving is the worst, I wish you a simple move with minimal broken shit.
Moving sucks. It just does, no way around it. Keep the “generally good thing” in mind as you plow on through.
I’ve told my husband that if we ever move again, I want to give a blank check to the movers with a map that has an X at our current location, another X at the new location and the instructions “make it happen, thank you.” I will then fly off for a rum-soaked beach vacation, and return home to a new abode with everything neat, clean and in its place.
In general I’m pretty satisfied with my money-is-an-issue-but-not-a-constant-worry station in life, but this is one of those times when I can see how it would be pretty sweet to be rich enough to pull off a move like that without batting an eye.
Let us clink our glasses in solidarity. Moving is a gigantic pain in the rear. Also trying to pack while your roommate is trying to show the room to people, and fretting about whether the landlord will deduct damage that was already there when you moved in from your deposit because you didn’t take a photo.
(And the people looking at the place I’ve been priced out of, who are presumably able to afford it, are ten or twelve years younger than I am, which makes me feel like a failure.)
*clink* Fretting about damage deposits is so awful, and in my experience there’s no way to predict accurately what a landlord will or won’t deduct for. It seems totally arbitrary.
Moving is the worst, and it is also kicking my ass. Trying to move to the neighborhood I work in, where no apartments really open up until July. Our lease is up at the end of May and we weren’t allowed to stay an extra month in our apartment because our landlord (who we’d had a good relationship with for four years, or so we thought), turned out to be kind of a jerk when we asked for a month’s extension.
Meanwhile I’m having weird health problems and the thought of moving back to a neighborhood where we spent three miserable years in an apartment that had everything go wrong with it, while I possibly tailspin back in to deep anxiety and possible depression, makes me want to make sure we don’t take a shit apartment again. We are actually considering storing all of our shit for a month to make sure we get a good apartment.
That sounds really stupid.
That does not sound stupid at all. Not even one bit. Well, I mean, the landlord sounds stupid, but something about becoming a landlord seems to make people stupid.
And I have to tell you that our new house is one of three Victorian row houses, which I have of course named the Schuyler Sisters. So my schuyler sister house (Angelica, because obvs.) sends love and good real estate mojo to another schuylersister.
That is nice to hear! I feel like we feel into a money trap that seemed like a good idea at the time (save money! live closer to work), but it feels like a lot of that money will be headed straight for the movers’ pockets and not ours.
Thank you for sending house love! Angelica sounds pretty lovely 🙂
moving is the worst. I was reminded to hold off on feelings about the new place for a couple of weeks, cause I irrationally hated the new place when I first moved in.
Yes, moving suuucks! I moved nearly every year while in college and hated it, and like an idiot, I accepted a job that has me moving every 8 months. Parts of my closet will forever remain in the box, I am NOT unpacking that just to pack it again in a couple of months, no way. Nothing is ever settled.
My next move is an international one. Pray for me.
How could you be in need of prayers when you have the greatest username EVER?
I am forever restless, moving, searching for an apartment that has a GOAT, DAMNIT FATHER
(Thank you though!)
OT, but I’ve been chewing over this one since someone posted a comment about being horrified at the idea of a bootleg Hamilton. (I can’t remember who posted, though, sorry!) I, too, am horrified. I can’t do bootleg Hamilton (or anything else!), and I can’t do non-Fairtrade coffee, either. Probably only a year ago I was more or less unaware of this. I’m 26. What happened, brain? Has anyone else become more aware of responsible consumerism recently?
Bootleg music or bootleg video? The music you should get legit, but the video doesn’t actually harm anyone. All the shows are sold out, and most people don’t live anywhere near enough to be able to attend anyway, so it isn’t taking money away from the actors. In fact, I am sure many people have gone out and bought the music and/or book after seeing the video, so they probably end up making MORE money.
That’s a good point! I hadn’t thought of that. Thank you!
The process of RECORDING the bootleg video can be really frustrating if other people at the show are distracted or aware of it, however, and I think that it’s not a good thing to do. Watching it doesn’t make you a monster, but there is going to be an official video recording of the show in due course, and LMM has said he doesn’t love that bootleg videos are out there.
“but there is going to be an official video recording of the show in due course”
wait this is news to me, please tell me more
Well, there’s going to be a national tour and productions overseas, so it’s not like the NYC run is really the only opportunity to see it.
Not everyone has the means to afford the tickets, which are very expensive.
This is true. That’s why there’s a cast album, which is how Lin-Manuel absorbed a lot of musicals growing up, because his family couldn’t afford to see a lot of Broadway musicals either. I was specifically refuting the line “most people don’t live anywhere near enough to be able to attend anyway.”
I just don’t see why anyone needs to watch the bootleg, especially when the creator, who’s worked tirelessly to bring this into being, has said he wishes they weren’t out there.
Even still, those tours still usually only hit major cities. The nearest place I can think of near me (Midwest) where it MIGHT come is over two hours away, too far for most people to travel to see a show for one night.
And I know musical nerds who would absolutely save up and make that trip with a night at a Motel 6 or something. I’m still not seeing the necessity of watching a bootleg of the show, which will only be a poor reproduction of the experience inside the theatre, regardless.
You do know that if a musical nerd does what you’ve described, it’s because they were able to do it? Some of the factors: being able to save up enough for all the costs involved and not having something urgent they need the money for, being able to take time off work if necessary, feeling safe enough (especially if they have to travel alone at night).
Disclaimer: I don’t know much about Hamilton and I’m geeky enough about the things I’m excited about that I’ve sometimes pulled off this kind of thing or at least thought about it. I don’t have a dog in the particular “should you do this to see Hamilton?” fight.
Yes, of course those are all factors. And for those who can’t for one reason or another, there’s always the cast album, which supports the show at a fraction of the cost.
Relevant to this thread: Lin-Manuel just tweeted this tonight: “Phone second row, and Phone 4th row: you almost f*cked it up for me, but Blue Dress and Little Kid were so with me, they held me down.”
Well, it’s not turning up in Australia until 2018, and it’s almost certainly not going to come to my tiny city when it does. So I mean – you are right, there will be other opportunities to see it, but two years would be a very long time for me to wait if I were a super keen Hamilton fan. And two years is a best case scenario, because all we know is that it’s coming post-UK trip which is 2017. No actual date has been set.
Incidentally, Lin-Manuel just tweeted this tonight: “Phone second row, and Phone 4th row:
you almost f*cked it up for me, but Blue Dress and Little Kid were so with me, they held me down.”
It’s a different type of thing, but I recently re-read a Harry/Draco fic, and apparently I’ve become the type of person who mutters “really boys? In the common room?” in a scandalized tone to myself.
The common room is supposed to be for everyone! Keep your sexy hijinks out of it.
But which common room?
It’s not a particularly recent thing, but I’ve been avoiding doing business with Amazon for so long that it’s become an iron law for me. I’ll buy from almost anywhere else or just do without a thing rather than buy it from Amazon.
Interpol would be so proud of you!
I’m horrified by it all, too, but I’m twenty years older than you. OTOH, my 16 year old was shocked when his 20 year old brother suggested we torrent something we wanted to see. So perhaps these aren’t all generational concerns.
Yup. I downloaded some music back in the day but am pretty much unable to download anything at this point. Part of it is just having a lot more sympathy for creators. Maggie Stiefvater has a lot to say on Tumblr about how much it hurts her (and the market for especially international sales and translations) when people pirate her books. (This is going to sound so naive, but I didn’t even know book piracy was a thing? I just don’t think of it as fundamentally digital and there are libraries for God’s sake!)
And reading Lin too. First of all, I would sooner cut off my arm than do anything I knew would make him unhappy. And second, yeah, it would be distracting like Nicole said, terrible quality and the performance/work is fundamentally theatrical. Lin keeps trying to remind people that you can’t capture the essence of being in the room and this current state of affairs is largely temporary. They are working really hard at 1) being enormously generous with the work in every way they can – from the cast album (which is free to listen to via YouTube and Spotify and those are official postings) to the book to the forthcoming documentary etc. and 2) to open as many productions as possible. Demand (or at least resale prices) for Broadway will go down once some of the OBC leaves, Chicago is opening and open-ended, yet another tour (or two!) is opening and traveling to cities all over the US, it will be in London, and even Australia, they’ve said they’ll expedite the release of the rights for high schools, etc. All of these are happening as fast as anything of this nature can and faster than for most Broadway shows, if any. I think he would rather you see a tour or even a high school production in 5 years and support the theatrical work, rather than view a bootleg. And there’s no question it will be a film at some point.
I’m also conflicted about bootleg anything, however, I recently watched a bootleg video of Helpless and Satisfied and it only helped intensify my love of Hamilton. There are nuances in both songs that can only be picked up by watching the performance, which for now isn’t a possibility for most of us. If you love the show, I would recommend you watch the videos.
I support the show by buying the cast album and Hamilton book (Hamiltome). Also, I’ve already started saving the hundreds of dollars it will cost to see the show when it comes to my town.
I worked for a Fair Trade business for a number of years, so I just want to give you a high five on the Fair Trade Coffee!
Speaking of which, are you familiar with Cafe Femenino? it is an all-women coffee cooperative, which is awesome, and the coffee is predictably delicious as well. Here’s the link: http://www.optco.com/cafe_femenino.htm
Has anyone else become more aware of responsible consumerism recently?
Yeah and it’s what led me down a slippery, crazy slope into raising my own livestock. I really, really don’t like to eat factory farmed meat. I am functionally vegetarian when at restaurants or eating at the homes of people who aren’t farmers. (I do have a travel clause and a “good quality but hole-in-the-wall ethnic food” clause because sometimes it’s important to have particular experiences.)
I had a similar phase regarding clothes, and the slavery that is garment production in the third world, but I didn’t find a good solution to that and have sadly backslid. (Ideas welcome.)
One of the past Open Threads had a thread with links to ethical clothing shops/companies. Several of them were Etsy shops, I think.
You could also try buying from vintage or secondhand stores.
Totally–for me it’s been trying to make the switch to ethical clothing (which is harder and more expensive than I thought)
I have a lot of complicated feelings about bootlegs. Because I’ve watched several in the past and I don’t feel any guilt for it? Broadway is an incredibly inaccessibly thing for so many people, even with touring productions, and pretty much anyone I’ve ever met who would sit through a bootleg of a musical buys a ton of merchandise because they want to buy what they can. And when the opportunity does arise to see the show, people take it. If they have the money. If they live close enough. I mean, yeah, a ticket to a tour production might be less than $100 for a less-popular show. But if you live over four hours away from the closest show? You have to factor in travel costs. And you suddenly can’t afford it anymore and you’re heartbroken because you WANT to see this show and you can’t make it work.
I mean, even watching productions that were filmed and released legally isn’t the same. I watched the movie version of The Phantom of the Opera a million times when it first came out, to the point where my family told me I couldn’t rent it anymore. I watched the production that was filmed and released. And it couldn’t come close to what it was like to see it while I was in London. To go and watch it unfold on a stage. It was one of the most amazing experiences of my trip there and Phantom doesn’t even rank in my top 15 musicals. You can’t capture what live theatre is like on film. It’s impossible. And people who love Broadway, people who watch bootlegs, they know that. They’re just trying to get as close as they can until they can finally get into the room where it happens.
But, at the same time, it’s distracting to the performers, especially if the person filming is close to the stage. It’s distracting to the people around the person filming. And that’s incredibly unfair to all of them.
Which is why I’m all for more official recordings and will pay all the money I have for them. Because I don’t particularly want to watch bootlegs if I can get around it. And I’m going to continue to work on saving up to see the shows I want to.
Yeah, I made a decision to stop downloading movies and tv shows with the exception of older stuff that I can neither get on a legit streaming site OR from Netflix on DVD. In that case, I figure I’ve done my due diligence trying to access it in a reasonable way first.
I sometimes have friends act surprised and confused when I tell them I can’t watch a show until it comes to Amazon or Netflix a year after airing.
I view purchasing media as voting with my dollars. It’s important to me to pay for as much of the media I like as I can manage (not always feasible due to international availability but I try) as a way of saying, “I support this and if you make more of it you can have more of my money.”
I read the whole Lee Radziwill piece too and thought I would add: the gossip (which I’m sure the writer wasn’t even allowed to bring up) was that Lee fucked JFK and that’s the real reason Jackie both married Onassis *and* pointedly left her nothing in the will.
“Sorry to learn that free speech is not encouraged with your website. Just lemming following and yes men comments.”
and i also have a brain
I WAS TOLD BY APPLECARE
“Jay: Her power still has yet to plateau and when it does, killing Kim is on her list”
This man has created a beautiful reality. I imagine Beyonce charging with a sword & lightning like She-Ra.
I don’t remember where I found this, but it’s a hell of a piece: http://m.arktimes.com/arkansas/ruth-coker-burks-t…
content note: discusses the AIDS epidemic
Wow, thank you for sharing. I have to admit that even though it is completely beside the point, I would like to know more about the fight that resulted in her mother buying an entire cemetery just so she wouldn’t be buried with the uncle!
On the one hand, I want to mock that bathroom ordinance, because it literally is closer to saying that citizens have the right not to be embarrassed when using bathrooms of the “opposite sex” than what I imagine they are trying to say.
On the other hand, it’s pretty enraging that these people aren’t even putting in the minimal effort to proofread their crap (—pun very much intended) legislation or make it readable. Like, “we’re not even going to dignify our victims with bothering to work out what our justification for attacking them is. Just throw some words on the page. Any words will do as long as some of them are long.”
I have not watched Lemonade but the fanfiction gives me joy. Or at least the Prince parts, which is all I have read so far.
What I really want is for every man who has transitioned from being a woman (I don’t know if there is a better way to say that, please let me know if there is) but who hasn’t yet changed his birth certificate to just go into the ladies and hang out there for HOURS and wave their birth certificate in everyone’s face. Bonus points if you have a big bushy beard.
There are already a few men doing this. Don’t recall the names.
“Quite solicitude” (they meant quiet solitude, right? Which still doesn’t make much sense) just makes me think of “solicitation”…as in, “people should be able to solicit for nice, hetero sex in the bathroom without any confusion, G-D it!”
Yet another right-wing Freudian slip …. it’s really reached the point where it isn’t even funny, just oh god, here they go again.
I hate to go off topic but there is a creepy child voice coming from SOMEWHERE. I have checked my computer speakers and my phone. None of my officemates seem to hear anything. Do I investigate or do I come up with a reason to hide somewhere off campus for the rest of the day?
0_o
There are several things you need to ask yourself before you make this decision-
-Is there any reason a child might be haunting you personally (lost twin, swimming tragedy when you were four, etc.)?
-Are you in either a small New England town with a violent past or a decaying Southern town with same? (I’m assuming you’ve already covered the pretty basic questions of are you living in a repurposed house or old factory and or you could be in a building built over an un-recognized cemetery.)
-Do you specialize in something like local folklore or the local archive or IT?
I think if you’re in a post-1920 building somewhere in Wisconsin that used to be a pasture and teach advanced geometry you’re probably safe and can go track the source down. If you’re in a backwater bayou that had the yellow fever sweep through the town killing all residents leaving only empty buildings the trustees bought because they came cheap (ignoring the old man caretaker who warned them that “when the wind comes up off the water and the heat steals the breath from your lungs *something* walks out there.”) and you’re the librarian tasked with organizing all the bits and pieces the townspeople left behind and have only just now unearthed a doll from a place where it looked like it had been purposefully hidden and meant to never be found again I suggest leaving immediately and seeing if that place in Wisconsin has an opening.
Nooooo I’m on a New England college campus in a building that was built pre 1920!!! In the archive!!!!
No indication I’m being haunted personally though… that’s something! I’m looking through a scarpbook about students protesting the Vietnam War… potentially haunted but probably not by a child?
BRB moving to Wisconsin.
I’ve got some bad news about Wisconsin.
Aw shit is that all post-mortem photography from Wisconsin? I need to get my hands on this.
I need better interests.
No. It’s even better than that.
Also, there was a film version made about a decade ago, and it is gorgeous and strange and haunting and lovely.
Aaaaaaah! Don’t go in the basement or attic alone/after dark! Where’s that list of how to be the Final Girl when you need it?
I feel like this should be made into a flowchart people can use to determine how safe they are from ghost children. Though if I were making it, all paths would probably lead to, “Possibly in danger. Ghost children possibly everywhere, you never know. Play it safe.”
Somebody please pitch this to the Toast!
I don’t think I can be the one to do this because I don’t watch scary movies. It’s all a little bit too real to me.
This particular set up has to do with degrees of safety. It’s mostly about not being the girl who dies before the title shows up. But yeah, flow chart is important. I think we all know that ghosts are uncomfortable in the desert, right? And dairies are clean and full of salt which is why I feel the former pasture-land is especially safe. Cows may repel ghosts. That has a real feeling of truthiness to it. Marshmallows work at protecting against evil spirits (You’ve never met an evil spirit while out camping, right? Neither have I so it must work. Or maybe that’s tigers. I can never remember.)
every link roundup i’m like “oh no, THIS is the best comment that’s ever been posted on the toast, i stand corrected” and you are today’s second honoree. bookmarking this for future possible-ghost flowcharting.
I feel so honored!
This manages to walk the line perfectly between helpful and also a beautiful and haunting ghost story.
I know a family who farms on an old abandoned town site in California. It’s way less spooky than it sounds though because it just picked up and moved to a place that flooded less. But the idea of it *really* stuck with me. (thank you btw, this might qualify as the first bit of public fiction writing I’ve done in years, I forgot how much I love it.)
Go hide, then write a screenplay about it.
Find an old priest and a young priest, then investigate.
BRB calling the old priest I work with and telling him to bring a young one back from the cafeteria.
could be something like this?
A few non-ghost possibilities to check if you decide to investigate: noise leaking from someone’s headphones that doesn’t sound child-like to them because they get the full headphone sound instead of the leak; noise leaking from the headphones of someone with worse hearing than you who isn’t even using their headphones right now but doesn’t realize they left their music playing; some sort of creaking door or other mechanical thing that echoes weirdly.
Our student worker just left and the sound has left with her. So it was either a headphone leak, or she’s being personally haunted and I could hear it.
Or she talks to herself quietly.
I am feeling immense relief right now on your behalf.
Quite solicitude. Clearly this legislation was written by a bunch of Deleted Commenters.
That is probably much more true than we’d all like to admit.
Well, now I’m really curious about what the maybe-creator of the U of P commercial said.
The headline alone fills me with rage. It gets worse as you read it. And then the author bio “Matthew Lau is a finance and economics student at the University of Toronto.”
He assumes capitalism is an airless system motivated only by the most sensible way of making money and not informed at all by the beliefs/biases of the people in charge (white men).
http://business.financialpost.com/fp-comment/matt…
My long-ago ex-boyfriend made that argument and it still makes my head explode in a white hot fire of rage. Burn it all down.
I recently had a student who had unwavering faith in the idea that market forces would fix problems like unequal pay (actually he didn’t believe the pay gap exists) or labor exploitation. He drove me MAD. Quite aside from the vacuum problem, it angered me that he assumed waiting around for the market to enforce things like a living wage would be AOk and that ethics would trump cost for most purchasers.
They are still teaching that people will not act against their own economic self-interest and it is blatantly, patently false. Has even been proven to be false. But the models don’t work without it so they can’t let it go.
It amuses me that in order to promote their viewpoint, the Post apparently now has to seek out writers who aren’t old enough to know better.
When I was a student at the University of Toronto, you could get free copies of the Toronto Star at most residences on campus, and you could get free copies of the Post at the management school only. They know what demographic they’re aiming at.
A very conservative friend of mine posted a thing talking about how transwomen using women’s bathrooms is traumatizing for some victims of child sex abuse because they could potentially see penises.
What the hell kind of bathrooms are these people using?
I am completely empathetic towards people who have experienced abuse, of course, but I am confused about what type of situation might occur that would lead to someone in a bathroom with stalls inadvertently seeing someone else’s genitalia.
also how does this not apply to cisgender men using men’s restrooms?
Excellent point.
Also, I am not overly familiar with public bathroom culture among penis-havers, but I am fairly certain that it is the norm to make a point of avoiding looking directly at another person’s genitals?
We will gouge out our eyeballs first.
It’s a little extreme, maybe, but you have to take extreme measures to retain any semblance of dignity or privacy when peeing into a communal trough.
The great thing about mostly following plus size fashion bloggers on Instagram is that I think I’ve only seen a detox tea post maybe once (and it was from a beauty blogger and she only did it once).
Here is an extremely helpful piece for all professors and students out there. https://medium.com/@lportwoodstacer/how-to-email-…
I feel like this could easily (and gainfully) be applied to work emails as well. Thank you!
This doesn’t compare to “my boss wants us to donate our internal organs,” but is a fairly horrifying and intrusive breach of workplace etiquette nonetheless.
Her boss sent a letter to her husband OH MY GOD. It’s not on the level of Betty’s psychologist calling up Don Draper to give him all the details of her therapy sessions on Mad Men, but it’s NOT GREAT EITHER, GUY.
In case anyone is interested, here is where the Tall Man and I are at this week (spoiler: transplant tomorrow!) https://www.the-pool.com/life/life-honestly/2016/…
Ahh, there’s onions or dust or something in this office.
Lots of good thoughts headed your way across the miles.
Aaaand I’m crying at my desk. I’m so happy for you and Tall Man that things are going this direction, and so thrilled for the people who have found matches because of you two. All the prayers in the world headed your direction.
I too am finding myself teary-eyed at work. This piece was remarkable and inspiring and I am sending you all my goodwill. (I can also promise that I will be buying both your books the moment they come out. You have a gift.)
I have my fingers crossed for you both!
On a lighter note, that lipstick sounds like the bomb. I have a gold lipstick from Ka’oir; it doesn’t entirely suit me but I love the lux feel of gold lips. (I also have a silver one. It’s also great.)
So the liver thing is horrifying. But also, to donate part of your liver, you are interviewed by medical professionals who will not let you take the risk if your reason for donating (a risky procedure with no personal medical benefit) is “my employer is forcing me into it”. And since privacy laws protect medical information the employer could never prove it.
You have to have a strong social bond reason to donate, either to a close family member, or as a swap for a close family member. It’s different from bone marrow donation. So the employer is evil AND uneducated.
Wet Hot American Summer coming back for another Netflix thing! Huzzah!
I’m all for a humans only bathroom rule, at least for my office bathrooms- I have a very strong startle reaction to doggy noses poking under my stall door when I am trying to pee in peace, damn it. Why are there dogs in the restroom????
*obvious exemption for service dogs- they actually have manners
I would probably scream EXCUSE ME and frighten the poor thing. The stall is my sanctuary, and unless someone is asking me for toilet paper or a tampon, I really don’t want to be disturbed.
Tennessee failed this round of potty panic bill, praise God, but my friend who owns a downtown business near the legislature swears she’s going to put up a sign that all genders are welcome to use the restroom – no legislators allowed.
Oh, tell her she must put up that sign. I’ll cheer her on from over here in my part of the state.
She will. She’s fucking pissed. (Hi fellow Tennessean!)
I’m definitely the boyfriend in my relationship with my best girlfriend.
I live alone, so my doors never close and my cats firmly believe that bathroom time is a shared activity.
That caused some issues when I had a couple of friends catsit for me and one of my cats apparently started bodily throwing himself at the closed bathroom door because 'WHY AM I EXCLUDED FROM FAMILY POOP TIME :'( :'( :'('
We were required to have a "consumer education" credit, but our grades were so heavily weighted that getting an A in a "regular" class, if you were normally taking all honors, pulled down your GPA. So all the overachieving types (self included) took the only "honors" weighted option, AP Microeconomics. That you were essentially rewarded for taking the class that was entirely theoretical and drawing graphs and imaginary fortunes, and penalized for the class where you learned how to do your taxes and write a personal budget seems oddly apropos.
Thank you!!! Someone else mentioned to me that they are often late and don't always see these the same day, so I made a wordpress blog where I'm gonna post them every day, just for kicks (and for posterity and to make it easier to scroll back). If you're interested anyway, it's: http://femhistory.wordpress.com
And YES, she was the second woman ever to win one!! https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/lau… So cool.