We’re in a CAR we’re in a CAR!
Autistic adults continue to get short shrift:
The Office of Autism Research Coordination (OARC), a department within the National Institutes of Mental Health that tracks autism research and spending, issued a report on April 19th (available here) that tracked autism research money spent in 2011 and 2012.
OARC’s findings disturbed the Autistic Self-Advocacy Network (ASAN), a rights group run by and for autistic people. They noted that the study showed that only 1 percent of research money was spent on needs of adults with autism—and this actually represented a decline from 2 percent in 2011.
Further, only 7 percent of research dollars in 2012 were spent on services, down from 9 percent in 2011. The bulk of rest of the money was spent on researching causation, treatment, diagnosis, and biology.
The only clinic in Canada that does gender confirmation surgeries has been torched by arson:
Danielle Chenier, a representative for the trans support group Aide aux trans du Québec (ATQ), said she was shocked by news of the arson at the CMC.
“That’s really an important place for the community,” she said.
Chenier said the clinic was the only one in Canada performing gender confirmation surgery and people waited for years to get it.
“I’m very anxious,” said Kate, an American transgender woman who did not want her last name used. “Any setback can be pretty traumatic.”
Kate is among the many transgender people who have waited several years to get gender confirmation surgery. She was due for surgery at the CMC in June.
I’ve had one particular conversation over and over again with other children of immigrants: When you don’t fit in because of skin color, accented English, and/or a poor command of local customs, clothing matters. Fake it till you make it; dress for the job you wish you had; maybe if you look like the well-heeled women in your Vogue magazines, you won’t be made to feel less-than by those who believe themselves to more obviously belong. My mother dressed me like a tiny, frilly doll when I started kindergarten, and she modeled herself after big-shouldered, big-haired fashionistas. Although we clearly stood out in my almost all-white hometown, our sense of style was meant to be on point.
life is a rich, rich tapestry, and it’s better than having them in my book club, so enjoy your clubhouse:
Perhaps because participation in reading groups is perceived as a female activity, some all-male book clubs have an outsize need to proclaim the endeavor’s masculinity. In addition to going by the name the Man Book Club, for instance, Mr. McCullough’s group expresses its notion of manliness through the works it chooses to read. “We do not read so-called chick lit,” he said. “The main character cannot be a woman.”
This is detailed in the Man Book Club’s criteria, on the group’s website: “No books by women about women (our cardinal rule)”.
Buzzfeed has a good primer on #rapedatmorehouse and #rapedatspelman
Kids with disabilities being abused in the classroom (you can decide if this is something you want to read about today, I personally have to really be in the right frame of mind to pull it off):
Despite decades of improvement in our special education practices, and the hard work of tens of thousands of fantastic teachers, the data is clear. Children with disabilities — especially those who are black or brown — remain terribly at risk for violence in schools.
Good morning, loves! The wonderful Linda Holmes (@nprmonkeysee, of Pop Culture Happy Hour) just posted a long article on NPR titled “Captain America, Aaron Burr, And The Politics Of Killing Your Friends.” http://www.npr.org/sections/monkeysee/2016/05/05/…
What more do you need to know?
<3 x infinite
What more do you need to know?
…does it have spoilers for Captain America: Civil War?
Ish. Not re: outcomes.
I went to see it last night and I wouldn’t have wanted to have read the article beforehand, but then I did go in having seen no trailers and knowing nothing other than it was a Captain America movie. It does lay out the premise it starts from.
Not really. I’ve only seen the trailers and gleaned a sense of the comic books’ plot from being on the Internet for the past several months, and I didn’t feel like it gave away anything I didn’t already know. But if you haven’t done any of that and want to be unspoiled for the concept (and for the amount of emphasis placed on different aspects of the central conflict), I’d hold off on reading it.
But then I’d definitely make sure to read it, because it’s a great article!
Three of my favorite people/things in one place!
….gonna wait until after I see the movie on Saturday, though.
I <3 Linda Holmes to eternity & beyond, but I do not <3 the npr.org commenting login which will never ever ever remember me and half the time the redirect takes a million years. Does anyone not have this problem? If not, what system do you use to comment there? Because it drives me up the wall.
Man, I have NO IDEA. They just look like Disqus comments! Why aren’t they just Disqus comments???
Probably my login was sometimes via twitter, sometime Disqus, and it hated me. I’m going to try again, cause I’ve got perseverance! (In this one arena.)
It’s Disqus, which is is kind of irritating, but not too bad.
I reset my Disqus & fingers are crossed it doesn’t expel me again next time. Thanks.
HATE IT. I have Disqus. I remain logged in to Disqus all the time, on all my regular computers. NPR’s site, for some reason, needs me to reverify my identity three times for every comment. Hate NPR’s commenting.
I have the same issue. I use Disqus, but one I registered with NPR which I figured would help it work better.
nooooooooooooooooooooooooope
My imaginary friendship with Linda Holmes is long-standing and intimate (only in my own head). Thanks for sharing!
I had coffee with her once! She is as delightful in person as you’d imagine.
I’m so pleased to hear that. I’ve been to some of the PCHH live shows, but, ironically, I’ve never been able to deal with the crowds of happy nerds enough to have conversations with any of the panelists.
Me too! Last week I actually passed Glen Weldon on the street while listening to PCHH and thought “OMG IT’S GLEN!” followed by “what would Glen do in this situation?” and then I kept walking with no eye contact. So basically, we’re BFF.
I’ve been to live shows and a podcast festival where I could have met the people in my earbuds and I just…can’t. I don’t know how all those people do it!
Awww I love Linda Holmes!! She is actually the reason I even read the toast in a round about way. I read her Survivor recaps on TWOP and then started reading her at Monkey See, which she then mentioned the Hairpin on PCHH and then the Hairpin led to the Toast. Anyway, what I am saying is love both Linda Holmes and the Toast very much so I like it when they collide!
Oooo I love everything about this. Thanks for the share!
I’m going to read it, but first I’m going to nerd-grumble:
There is, in the books, a fairly potent political story about civil liberties, hate crimes, and the tension between safety and security that constantly inspires vigorous debate over both its existence (or not) and its proper resolution (or not).
NO THERE ISN’T. There’s just a series of supposedly smart characters picking up the idiot ball one after another and then a remarkably stupid conclusion. There’s a potent premise. Then it all gets Millar-ized.
ETA: Having read it, it’s really great, and I am even more interested in seeing the movie now.
Hi! This is a fair observation. I should have said “in the concept for the books.” I think that story is there, but I agree with you that they don’t do much with it, and in particular that nobody does much to explain the civil liberties implications of the story. Does that make sense? They don’t really surface these issues, but to me, they’re still there. Thank you for reading and for the kind words.
Thank you for taking the time to reply, Ms. Holmes!
That totally makes sense, and I definitely agree. Civil War had enormous potential. Your piece is great; I loved the parallels between Hamilton and the Civil War movie.
It is so neat to see a comment from Linda Holmes herself on the site 🙂
Joining the commenter above excited about two things we love colliding.
Thank you! I’m checking this out now.
…she’s very right (amongst other things) about that shot being a gift to people who like arms. Or, y’know, the male physique in general.
Please enjoy a roundup of some of the suggested names for those dudes’ book club from #ManlyBookClubNames
Reading Rainbro! ♥
I am having a really hard time with the article. Even their food is gendered! Like – people who aren’t cis dudes like spicy food, yo.
I’m just trying to imagine what it’s like to be one of those guys. Like, what does it feel like to be among the most privileged people in the history of the world, and yet, still fear that someone might think you’re a GIRL because you read with your friends and don’t bring hot sauce.
And yet somehow never realizing there are women with both a book and some hot sauce in their bag.
#swag
And that one of those women will likely be our next president! Is this why they feel threatened? #ohwell
I think Hillary’s predilection toward spicy food is my favorite presidential candidate behavioral quirk. (I read somewhere that she apparently eats raw jalapenos “like potato chips,” which is fairly bizarre but also somehow endearing?)
I love spicy foods, but cannot imaging enjoying raw jalapenos this way. Pickled though, I can eat them all day long.
Those pepporicini things that come in huge jars. Once upon a time I worked at a Safeway deli where we had those for the sandwiches. I found out I loved just eating them. I get excited when I go to an event with appetizer buffets and those are laid out. It never occurs to me to buy them to eat!
That puts the hard-boiled eggs from Cool Hand Luke to shame.
yeah like I am not trying to disparage the work that anyone puts in to their gender role or anything, I don’t know what it’s like to be a woman and I’m sure there’s a lot to it, but 90% of masculinity is the constant process of reaffirming your own masculinity with each and every detail of your life and it’s god-damn exhausting.
This made me think of Bill Burr:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZH0tB7Hnjrs
At this point masculinity feels to me like running an elaborate, long-term con. I can’t leave a single loose thread, no matter how tiny, because some other dude will start pulling on it and the whole thing will unravel, until they realize, “Oh, hey, you’d be a good, safe target for aggression!”
yeah the whole process is both extremely stupid and extremely nerve-wracking
Can I just thank you for using the correct spelling of wracking, unlike the Rolling Stone editors in the Chris Evans article linked from the comments yesterday? Yes? Thank you.
Oh my GOD, i wanted to stab something when I read that bit of the article. Get it RIGHT, damn it.
Wait, they’re gendering spicy food? That is so weird to me. I know there’s a whole toxic masculine thing about proving manliness by eating food you find painful, but still come on. It’s a food flavorant beloved world-wide by many kinds of people. They don’t get to own it.
I feel like sriracha was the dudebro condiment of the moment there for a hot second (WINK). Like, when I got The Sriracha Cookbook out of the library and discovered that it really wasn’t FOR me. Tipoff should have been that it was on sale at Urban Outfitters, TBH.
The author’s bio is …something.
“Randy Clemens is a freelance food & drink writer, as well as a professional hedonist.”
Ew.
Also, sriracha is definitely still the dudebro condiment of the moment. (source: I work on Wall Street)
Which is weird because all the people who use Sriracha in my social circle are women.
The only time I have ever won a drinking contest, it was because I grew up in Southeast Asia eating spicy food. My white dudebro opponents did not believe I would match them shot for shot of bourbon-with-various-spicy-thing (I think they started with, like, Tabasco, hahahaha). Then a friend of mine who enjoyed spectacle broke out the bottle of sriracha she kept in her tiny dorm fridge. Long story short, men ended up literally weeping in front of me while I raised my eyebrows pityingly (at the time I felt it would have been too cruel to laugh).
this is just to say
i have taken
the shots
of chilli-
laced liquor
those which
you were probably
using
to affirm your manhood
they were OK, I guess
but not actually
that spicy?
sorry, bro, at least you tried! (head-pat)
I don’t even really like sriracha (too vinegary for my taste) and am pretty tired of it being The One Southeast Asian Spicy Condiment White Americans Know About.
This comment is sheer perfection.
Thank you! Your username is a delight.
Thank you!
You are my hero.
I feel vaguely guilty now, because I don’t at all mean to imply “being able to tolerate/enjoy spicy food = badass”! Food should be a source of nutrition, pleasure, or ideally both, and everyone has different preferences. I think that evening I was struck by a perverse impulse to unravel the “MOAR SPICY IS MOAR MANLY” attitude, which I’ve encountered WAY more in the US than I ever did at home.
Don’t feel guilty. That was truly awesome.
There really needs to be a word for the feeling of “I don’t know WHY you want to get into a dumb competition with me, my good fellow, but above all I don’t know why you insist on picking a field of battle upon which you are DOOMED TO PERISH.”
It’s like mild schadenfreude with a strong overtone of secondhand embarrassment???
Ravenwooding?
I hearby declare you have won this thread.
Seconded.
I don’t know what this is from! I googled “Ravenwood” but most links were for a cancelled ABC show called Ravenswood (Pretty Little Liars spinoff)?
That would be from Raiders of the Lost Ark, the first of the Indiana Jones movies. 🙂 Marion Ravenswood is the character’s name.
Thank you! I saw this a billion years ago on TV and then I guess forgot a lot of it. Might be time for a re-watch 🙂
Also fond of this one:
Epic indeed.
Your comment already had me cheering for you and then I got to the poem and died.
This is all-around wonderful. *100 emoji*
I do really like sriracha, but I don’t even consider it super hot. It’s just the easiest condiment that I know will add a bit of heat to anything I think kind of needs it, you know?
On a related note to your drinking story, one of my grad school friends from Germany brought to our geology department the tradition of celebrating St. Barbara’s Day (patron saint of miners, explosions, and, by some extension, geologists). Apparently a German(?) geology tradition was to have chili-infused vodka (this tradition did not exist where I lived in Germany later, so maybe it was a super regional thing?). They had like a serrano one which was reasonable, and someone had the grand idea of using a GHOST PEPPER for the other one. I thought I might die, and a mutual friend who also tried it DESPITE KNOWING HE CAN’T HANDLE SPICY FOOD also tried it, and we were all literally worried we’d have to take him to the emergency room.
Masculinity: leading to good decision making all the time!
YES, IT’S NOT EVEN THAT SPICY #srirachatruther
(not in any way knocking people who like it, I just find the vinegar flavor too pronounced for my own taste in most situations)
That’s fascinating about St. Barbara! I am not religious at all but am very into Random Saints of Unexpected Things. That ghost pepper vodka sounds like a terrible idea all-around, though. I guess you could use it for a vodka-tomato-sauce reduction – that might be good?
This is so off topic of toxic masculinity, but whatever. St. Barbara is a pretty cool saint to me, though I don’t know much about her beyond what anyone can google around to find.
I was once Catholic and was even confirmed, and my absolute favorite Saint, whose name I took as my confirmation name, was St. Jude (I was also really into the Beatles at the time). At that point, I was going through the religious motions for my mom, and St. Jude is the patron saint of lost causes, which I just found and still find so amazingly apt.
Your choice of St. Jude is the kind of perfect thing that would seem TOO apt to me if I read it in a book.
Another too-apt thing: the fact that one of the expressions of “toxic masculinity” is “bros literally giving themselves food poisoning by ingesting things that are too spicy for them”. TOXIC INDEED.
I like sriracha, but only the chunky garlic sauce that comes in plastic jars, not the thin stuff that comes in a squeezy bottle.
The chili garlic sauce? That stuff if the best! Recently, I’ve been sautéing asparagus with a glaze of that and honey, and it is amazing.
(taking notes)
Sambal oelek is better than sriracha, I whisper menacingly as I fly into the night on silent pontianak wings.
HELL YES
😀 😀 😀
<3 <3 <3
Update: I got so excited about this comment that I accidentally ran over my bare foot with the wheel of my office chair while I was still sitting in it. I am so glad someone else knows this feeling, though!
Sichuan red oil is my jam, mostly because I would eat a spicy and numbing car bumper probably.
Yes, this is another delicious option!
Have you read Kitchens of the Great Midwest? It’s not what I expected, given that it’s about a chef from the midwest.
Anyway, at one point as a middle-schooler, she runs away from home (she’s in trouble for feeding some kind of ghost-pepper-infused (I forget which kind of pepper) treat to her school-bus tormenters), and goes out with her cousin’s college friends to a spicy-wings eating contest place and casually smokes all the bros who are so proud of eating, like, 2 dozen wings or something. It’s sweet. Best fiction about dummies who think they know about spiciness I’ve ever read.
No, it is new to me! Just from the description here and on the publisher’s website, though… this sounds both like a book I would enjoy myself, AND like a great Mother’s Day present for my mom (she of the Iron Stomach and Unerring Palate). Thank you 🙂
THIS IS A WORK OF GENIUS??
This is also true for me, but then most of the people in my social circle are women.
All the people I know with strong preferences between hot sauces are women! A friend of mine was so in love with one local sauce (which she did indeed carry in her bag everywhere) that she got quoted in a news article and the company gave her a whole gallon of the stuff.
I knew a buncha (straight!) guys who took up referring to sriracha as “spicy cock”. Referring, I’m sure, to the image on the label and nothing more.
But, um. They were presumably going to put it in their mouths? Probably as a demonstration of their Straight Manliness (admittedly I’m extrapolating from past experiences with straight men and spicy things, but it seems like a safe conclusion)?
DID THEY NOT SEE ANY INHERENT CONTRADICTION THERE.
???
TIL: My ex is writing under the pen name of “Randy Clemens.”
I have the vegan version and it’s actually pretty great! There’s probably a whole sociology thesis in the intersection of vegetarian culture and performatively masculine sriracha culture, or something.
What, like if you’re a vegan dude perhaps you have to embrace sriracha to ensure the world that you’re not a total pansy? You might be onto something.
(FTR I am not implying I believe vegans are less than masculine – I’m a vegetarian lady who doesn’t really give a rip what you eat/don’t eat.)
Having known lots of vegans (because Portland): a very tiny number of vegan dudes are really defensive of their masculinity, but the majority of the ones I’ve known thought the usual masculine ideal was bullshit or were uncomfortable with it in general.
But there are more vegan women than men, in my experience.
Dear Sirs (or Madams – ha ha just kidding!),
Attached please find my resume, which I am confident you will find meets every requirement you have for your opening for Manager of the Hedonist Division.
I have long been intrigued by your company’s motto: Super Omnia Cupiunt. In bringing my own hedonism from the personal to the professional level, I have found, as I’m sure you have, that the accumulation of diverse desires is as important as the sheer quantities of desires fulfilled at all costs. Note that I am both a tantric expert, a graduate of Le Cordon Bleu, and a rising Parkour YouTube sensation. I can truly bloviate about a vast range of desires, and my skills in this area will help DoucheBros, Inc., reach 2,200,000 on the Scoville scale.
Yours,
Randy
This is perfection.
“Randy Giles?! Why didn’t name me Horny Giles, or Desperate-for-a-Shag Giles?!”
What I think about when I hear the name Randy.
Super Omnia Cupiunt! *dies*
I mean, one shouldn’t laugh indiscriminately at one’s own jokes, but I was proud of that.
You should be proud of that! I mean, here’s me hours later still chuckling about it.
Pfft, hedonism AIs are getting more efficient every day. It’s a dying industry.
Every time I see the word hedonism I think of this robot, happy to see this posted.
“I apologize for nothing”
Seriously, they can’t take my spicy food from me. Sriracha forever!
They realise that there are parts of the world where spicy food is very common and not everyone there is male, right?
Hemingway or the Highway
eta: I’m terrible at coming up with puns, so I’m pretty proud of this one.
Waiting for a Bro
A Million Little Egos
Mo’ by Dicks
Brobinson Crusoe
Or you could double-down on that one: Brobinson Crusbro!
For Whom the Bro Trolls
Thank you! I won’t be reading that article (it’s been a week, and I don’t even have enough emotional energy for laughing at male tears to feel refreshing), and that hashtag is the perfect way to engage with it without giving it my pageviews.
#ManUpABook is full of delightful puns, too. I’m inordinately proud of this tweet.
Ha! As well you should be proud 🙂
Does the Man Book Club have a “No Girlz Alloud” sign on the clubhouse?
“Get Rid Of Slimy girlS”
They are literally gargling balls (in taco form!) in the Man Book Club.
This list is beautiful. I lost it at “The Old Mansplain and the Sea.”
As I Lay Crying
John Eyre
Pride and Extreme Prejudice
The God of Large Things
Dr. Brassard, who is the surgeon at the CMC, is one of a handful of doctors who can even perform GCS. As a trans woman, the idea that people are now attacking doctors who perform GCS is so, so scary. *sigh*
I was happier when trans people could be invisible.
D:
I wish trans people could be visible AND safe. *toastiehugs*
<3
A+ hugging there.
That’s an interesting thought because, on the whole, the greater visibility of trans issues in the last 2-3 years has seemed so important and helped a lot of people gain more understanding, but this whole ridiculous bathroom “controversy” (in this case controversy just = some people being mean for no reason, basically) has made it clear that trans people making their voices heard is now leading to greater harassment which is so upsetting 🙁
This is more OT than anything but I am just having a rough week and wanted to rant about it for a moment. Sorry.
This week:
– One of my friends from school died in a car accident. The funeral is tonight and work has been impossible to focus on.
– My indoor cat snuck out the front door- and after crying for two hours and searching, my boyfriend finally found her. But she is fine, and safe. It was still scary.
– A random man came up to me this week and asked if I had gotten a boob reduction- which… That is so invasive. I hate men sometimes.
– I learned this week that Woody Allen and Miley Cyrus are making a TV show for Amazon Prime, which bummed me out. I was rooting for Miley Cyrus. And Kristen Stewart.
Mostly- this week has been a bummer. Love all you toasties though!
🙁 all the internet hugs to you.
I’m so, so sorry.
I’m sorry for your loss, and I hope things get better soon and that your cat stays put and gives you some proper snuggles.
Sympathy and good thoughts your way. Re the last item, we had a good thread in LR yesterday where we tore Woody Allen to pieces, so that might cheer you up if you haven’t seen it already. The phrase ‘shit museum’ was utilised 🙂
http://the-toast.net/2016/05/04/link-roundup-566/
YES. This week has been such chaos that I missed it! and now I’m ready to hear about him getting torn apart! Thank you!!!!
*hug*
Sending Toasthugs. So sorry.
I’m so sorry.
I’m so sorry for your loss, this sounds like a truly garbage week. Sending you internet hugs. <3
Oh man, what a week. I’m so sorry. Sending you good vibrations, Beach Boys style. <33
All the hugs!!
God. I’m so sorry.
Regarding pet escape- My dog ran away a year or so ago while the front door was accidentally left open. He was found like 30 minutes later but it was one of the scariest moments of my life. A million things rush into your head and you go to a dark place where you feel so helpless. It’s been a year and that fear is very much still with me. Ugh, pets!! Why do they have to be so lovable!? Glad you found your cat, hope she stays put in the future.
So glad your kitty is safe. And sorry for all hte other crap. I will kick That Guy in the shins for you. (I wish.)
“We are not allowed to suggest books that our mothers have suggested.”
Well! That’s a sign of a grown man, fully in possession of his masculinity, if ever I saw one!
The HuffPo linked above tells me “The International Ultra Manly Book Club’s website even outlines a vision that ‘one day we could step out of the shadow of our mothers’ book clubs and proclaim that yes, we too, are intellectuals.'” INTELLECTUALS?
First reaction: Raise hand to mouth and whisper, “NO.”
Second reaction: Is there a way to interpret this as these fellows perhaps inadvertently admitting to the daunting intellectualism of mothers?
that line REALLY threw me off, like, “intellectual” is the LAST word you’d think a manly dudely no girls allowed bookshelf would associate with women’s book clubs.
Right? If I hadn’t read the article, I’d assume all they read was Chuck Palahniuk books. Oh and Jonathan Franzen.
I’d be my left kidney that none of these men have ever had a conversation with their mothers about what their mothers liked or why certain books appealed to them or how they feel about their lives and the choices they’ve made or whether they have any regrets. Your mom is a person, bro.
When I worked in a bookshop, a man once came up to me and asked if I could recommend a book to buy his mother for his birthday. I asked him what she liked, and he just shrugged and looked at me with a panicked expression. He literally had no idea what she enjoyed. So depressing.
ETA he seemed to be under the impression that I would have a recommendation for ‘mothers’ in mind. Which, I know things are marketed that way but come on.
“Hey ma, what do you want for your birthday?”
“Oh, just get me a book from the mom section at the store.”
“Yes of course. What a modern convenience that section is, we didn’t even need to have a conversation.”
When companies have Mother’s Day promotions I always hope that 1.) they will apply to MY mother who is hard to shop for because a lot of her identity is sunk into community and family and very little is in consumption and 2.) that it will be for awesome watches or camping gear or something. Never does. Never is.
(Please note that my mother’s identity not only makes her hard to shop for but also means that the opinions of others are VITAL and thus gifts should ideally reflect a sense of self others will respect. I realized that I sounded like I was humblebragging and seriously her having a hobby that isn’t “waiting for people to finish enjoying their hobby and then giving them food” would be great.
I sympathize with terrible bookstore dude, I guess.
I mean, I hope that someday they get around to reading Oedipus Rex and reflect on this choice of theirs.
As the great Oscar Wilde said “All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does, and that is his.”
Clearly these men need to read more Wilde.
“Is that clever?”
“It is perfectly phrased, and quite as true as any observation in civilized life should be.”
Um, no, Wilde was gay and not shy about it (even tho prison!); these men would never read him because he’s too effeminate or whatever.
I wonder how many of these kinds of people would know that, though? I feel like it might get snuck through.
On a side note, A.E. Housman’s ‘Oh, Who is that Young Sinner?’ was inspired by Wilde’s imprisonment, and is one of my favorite poems.
I’d never seen it before! Oh, poor Oscar Wilde. Poor A.E. Housman. Thank you for sharing the poem.
His poem “The Laws of God and Man” is also excellent.
The laws of God, the laws of man,
He may keep that will and can;
Not I: let God and man decree
Laws for themselves and not for me;
And if my ways are not as theirs
Let them mind their own affairs.
Their deeds I judge and much condemn,
Yet when did I make laws for them?
Please yourselves, say I, and they
Need only look the other way.
But no, they will not; they must still
Wrest their neighbor to their will,
And make me dance as they desire
With jail and gallows and hell-fire.
And how am I to face the odds
Of man’s bedevilment and God’s?
I, a stranger and afraid
In a world I never made.
They will be master, right or wrong;
Though both are foolish, both are strong.
And since, my soul, we cannot fly
To Saturn nor to Mercury,
Keep we must, if keep we can,
These foreign laws of God and man.
I didn’t know this was the poem “I, a stranger and afraid
In a world I never made.” is from — thank you!
On a lighter side note, there’s a series of mystery books starring Oscar Wilde and (mostly) Arthur Conan Doyle as Victorian proto-buddy cops which are kind of hilarious.
But you have to admit, Oscar Wilde was a stalwart example of a Man Going His Own Way. A lesser man would have caved under pressure and ceased his devotion to appreciation of other men and their manly virtues. But not Oscar Wilde, no.
*winces* I really don’t want to think about Oscar Wilde as an earlier version of Milo Yiannopolous.
I like to think that Oscar Wilde would not have cared about ethics in video game journalism, but one can never be sure.
What’s the late 19th/ early 20th c. British equivalent of video games? Sardines?*
(* the party game, not the fish)
I’m not sure, but it’s probably called something super-racist.
Whist:)
elaborate charade and tableau games like Nebuchadnezzar
Well. Not shy, apart from that time he sued someone for the “posing as a sodomite” comment.
Their mothers should recommend a bunch of Steinbeck and Hemingway and Carver and see what they do about it.
This is the most brilliant experiment, and should be run immediately.
Suddenly, for the first time, I regret my childless lifestyle–I need test subjects!
Reminds me of that K&P sketch where Obama suggests very conservative things to conservatives and they reflexively disagree with him, thus enabling him to pass a progressive agenda: http://www.cc.com/video-clips/tnawa2/key-and-peel…
To be fair, I never read tuck everlasting because my mom could be relentless in telling me what to read, and I resisted by refusing to read books everyone was telling me I MUST. So you know….its a perfectly decent method for a 10 year old to gain a sense of autonomy in her or his life.
My mother now gets around that by telling me, “Don’t read this. You’d hate it.”
Oh, honey. Honey, no.
I can’t QUITE tell whether or not that article about Man Book Clubs is sarcastic. It plays pretty straight, but it might just be extremely dry.
I can see this writer just playing it straight and letting the men show their asses, if that’s what they choose to do. It’s exactly the passive-aggressive move I’d delight in.
If somebody’s going to hang themselves with their own words, it’s just common courtesy to extend them the necessary rope and muffle your chuckles.
Thank you for the gift of that Ham4Ham before I dive back into my last day of paper writing of my first year of grad school! See you on the other siiiiide
’till we meet again
let’s gooooo
GOOD LUCK!! (May the odds be ever in your favor, etc etc)
Philly area Toasties! We’re trying to arrange a meetup picnic for sometime next week – if you’re interested, could you fill out this doodle poll that the lovely cyanjellyfish put together? http://doodle.com/poll/bkwb39pa7qr7etd8
Aah, so sad, I have zero evenings next week 🙁 Have fun y’all!
🙁 Hopefully we’ll be doing more meetups in the future!
I just skimmed the book club article because ugghhhhhh. Good for you guys? But why did we have to write an article about it.
When we graduated, my roommate and I briefly attempted to join/form a book club, since we both like reading and because that’s what Adult Women do, join book clubs. But it fell apart pretty quickly– one of her friend’s friend sent out a list of possible picks, we gently pointed out that she hadn’t included a single non-white non-male author, and she got really pissed off and said she wouldn’t read any of the lady authors we suggested. We backed off & then sort of ghosted the conversation. Maybe after grad school I’ll try again. (No point to this story, except that did the dudes really have to look that far for “no female authors!” book groups? My buddies, it’s called any college lit class)
ETA just saw the line about a number of them being engineers or lawyers. WHY DO YOU NEED A BOYS’ CLUB IF THAT’S YOUR JOB??! -signed, lady who is in both fields
I was a member of a really fantastic library-sponsored book club for teens as a high school student, and years later I decided to check out the adult version of the same group. When I showed up the discussion was dominated by a group of youngish engineer-y dudes who were totally furious about the month’s selection because, despite being written by a straight white man, the book included a female character. I’m actually all in favor of letting these types head off to a boys-only book club, because then maybe once the jerkwads have self-selected themselves away the rest of us can actually maybe talk about books?
Male engineers should only be allowed to read books about ladies for the end of time.
We had to take English courses as an engineering pre-req (engineers only instead of mixed in the with the general student population) and we read Chronicle of a Death Foretold and it was a NIGHTMARE. One of my (male, duh) classmates compared marrying a non-virgin to buying a used blender. The fact that I didn’t leap over my desk and strangle him to death was sort of a miracle.
A BLENDER. It’s been literally 10 years and my blood pressure still goes up when I think about it.
Excuse me while I curl up in a ball and pretend it’s impossible for a human being to voice those words.
Wait what’s wrong with a used blender, though? On top of being a misogynistic douchebag, that’s not even a good metaphor.
My mum has and happily uses a second-hand food processor that was left on top of a garden wall with a sign saying it was free to a good home. Used blenders are fine!
Much like non-virgins!! 🙂
This is just so intensely misogynistic, and also very engineer-y. Is that the same thing? “Hmmm, what’s an appliance I can use in this metaphor?”
Continuing the comparison, if you wanted to consummate your eventual marriage with a thousand swift cuts from razor-sharp blades, wouldn’t you prefer to mangle yourself with an unused appliance?
That’s just common sense.
“My buddies, it’s called any college lit class”
And even if you are a 40-or-50-something engineer lawyer, it’s still called like 70% of the recent NYT bestsellers and well over half the end capped books in every bookstore. You don’t have to be in the cannon – you just have to look like the cannon, and you, too, can get a publishing deal!
We have a Toastie Book Club, if you’re interested after things are less busy for you! We read one book a month and meet in a Slack chat to discuss. We actually do only read non-male authors, partially/mostly because a couple people in the group are only reading non-male authors this year (including me, for the 2nd year running, and let me tell you it is great) but I think we all also try to have a diverse range of authors/subjects beyond that!
Would it be possible to have a link to that? I’d love to take part!
Yeah! You can join the Google Group here!
We are up to 85 members! Yay toasties!
Oh my god, retweet to the “WHY DO YOU NEED A BOYS’ CLUB IF THAT’S YOUR JOB”
I can’t tell you the number of times men have complained to me about SWE (society of women engineers) and the lack of a male equivalent.
I always tell them that every single class and job in this field is the society of men engineers, and can they please let us have this ONE THING? Also, you’re totally free to join SWE if you feel like you’re missing out on networking. We totally welcome men.
They don’t ever want to join though, they just want to complain.
UGH UGH UGH UGH
“We don’t want to join your women’s club. We just want to hate on the fact that a club exists that has “women” in the name.”
They don’t ever want to join though, they just want to complain. -Literally ever dude that complains about things for women, including feminism.
“wait, there is a movement for women? WHAT ABOUT THE OPPRESSED MEN? No I don’t want to do anything about it, i just want you to know that they exist”
Yes ugh. “It’s totally discrimination that there’s a women’s center on campus and not one for men.”
“Well, the women’s center runs five or six support groups, helps book and promote guest speakers, hosts a bunch of events open to men and women. . .What would you do in the men’s center?”
“Uh. . .but we should have one! Unfair!”
“Would you like to start a men’s center? Because you could totally do that.”
“We don’t want to do that, we just want there to be one already provided for us!”
Haha yeah, my company had an engineering intern last year who was upset too about organizations only for women engineers. And he was all concerned because the dropout rate for male students was so high. He asked my male engineer friend why he thought that was, and my friend replied, “Because men are lazy.” That’s when I knew I was in platonic love with him forever.
Per the subthread above about names for the group, I’d suggest that they name themselves Male Lawyers and Engineers in Their Mid-50s, as that will warn people off–including probably quite a few fellow male lawyers and engineers in their mid-50s, who already know all too well what their brethren are like.
When I was 20, I joined a book club that my friend’s dad invited me to – I was the youngest by a couple decades and the only woman. Made it through two meetings b/c of the “no women writers” discussion and incidentally developed a life long and perhaps unjust hatred of Paul Auster.
I’m tangentially involved in a book club at a big tech company and I’m only now fully realizing how much of a miracle it is that it isn’t actually the book club in this story.
I want the community aspect of a book club but almost always chafe against being told what I have to read. Is there a such thing as a book club that consists of everyone just talking about what they are reading right now?
I think that’s called the Open Thread…
I like your sass.
That’s what my bookclub is!
Also BookRiot does a monthly meetup in a bunch of cities that fits that bill!
That… makes so much sense! There tends to be a lot of book conversation with my friends anyway, but it would be really cool to have a gathering with that explicit purpose.
I would…love this actually. I think it would be particularly neat if, instead of a specific book, there was a broad theme for each meeting, like food or travel or illness and people could take that however they wanted and pick their own reading material, meet up, and discuss the broad topic from a bunch of different vantage points.
(this may have been the most liberal arts thing I have ever voiced)
YES. I especially like that your idea would allow people the flexibility to read fiction or nonfiction, according to their preferences/whim of the moment. I tend to alternate unpredictably between the two and have never found a book club that quite worked for me.
That would be awesome!
Yes, I used to be in a book group like that! It was called a non-tyrannical book group, and everyone discussed what they’d recently read and brought the books in to lend if other people were interested.
Someone literally just suggested this in the Boston-area Toast Facebook group, which I can’t make this month but hope it becomes a regular thing. I think it sounds awesome, but I also like really discussing the books in-depth.
Can you link me to that group? I’m failing to find it and would love to join!!
No kidding!!
(I’m a lawyer who ended up working in health care law, and almost every place I’ve worked has had 80-90% female staff. 10/10, would recommend).
You know, I’ve never heard it called “gender confirmation surgery” before, only “reassignment.” It really shows the power of language and what one word can do.
I had the same reaction.
Yes, exactly this.
yes, i have heard this more lately and i love it so much. it just takes the wind out of the sails of anyone who’s going to argue for some kind of innate biological alignment — like, “we see your nasty bio argument and raise you one better”
In my state (NSW, Australia) the legislation calls it “gender affirmation surgery”.
Everyone go read Getting Slutty at Amp Camp. I’m being bossy because it’s that good.
You’re correct.
Wow, that was pretty awesome… even though I have to admit that I was more of the top-bunk d&d nerd type she left behind.
Why isn’t this a movie? It should be a movie. Or at the very least, a book with one of those delightfully pulpy covers that All 90s Books Had. (a la Babysitter’s Club)
I want this to be a movie so badly.
I loved that article. Having sex while disabled is complicated, and most people (even ~sexually liberated~ ones who will discuss anything about sex) get really uncomfortable when disabled folks start discussing the mechanics and psychodynamics of sex when disabled. We aren’t supposed to act on our desires, or figure out work arounds so we can do what we want.
And Maude forbid we get more attention for a scene than the non-disabled person did. Not that I’m bitter about having some dude ruin a meaningful scene that involved the first time in years where I stood without a cane and did not fear falling and could move however I wanted, or anything.
I would *love* to have an in depth discussion about sex with a disabled friend; My friends and I don’t talk explicitly about sex often anymore, but occasionally we really get into it, all the nitty gritty ins and outs and its so much fun and really cathartic. I’d be fascinated to listen to someone with such a different experience talk about it.
Okay I dunno if it’s just me but the way you phrased this is uncomfortable. Disabled people aren’t a monolith, and discussing sex while disabled involves an intense level of vulnerability and dodging being fetishized. I think you would be better off reading works written by disabled folks, rather than expecting disabled folks to share intimate personal experiences with you. They aren’t there to educate you, you know?
Yeah I was trying to think of a way to phrase this where it wouldn’t come across that way, but I totally failed there. It was a kind of stupid comment to make in the first place.
What I mean is, in response to your comment above (most people … get really uncomfortable when disabled folks start discussing the mechanics and psychodynamics of sex when disabled.); if I happened to have a disabled friend/acquaintance and the conversation took a turn towards sex (which happens a lot for me and my female friends, although not as much as it used to), I’d be really interested in their side of it and their experiences, because I like hearing other sides to things, especially from my friends, and it could be a fun conversation to have. Basically I’d like to think that friends of mine would feel part of the conversation rather than feeling shut out by other peoples uncomfortable-ness with their different life experiences because I like hearing about them instead of feeling uncomfortable.
I understand that people who are different to me are not there to educate me, and I hope that people who know me don’t feel I am that way, I certainly wouldn’t expect someone to have this kind of conversation with me unless they wanted to and felt comfortable doing it; I try to read works written by different people for this reason, but I also like talking to my friends about their experiences and how they are different to mine.
I hope that makes more sense, in a long drawn out way, and I’m sorry that I made you uncomfortable with my original comment, that really wasn’t my intention!
I struggle with language like this too, because I am curious to the point of being nosy, and I really want to know How Other People Do Things That I Also Do, particularly w/r/t sex. I totally got what you were saying, and I wish there were a better way to phrase it.
This makes me uncomfortable in the same way Selma’s first comment made Nashirakins uncomfortable. I’m glad Selma clarified because I think their clarification is a good one- There’s a big difference between “If I were friends with a person who has a disability I hope they would be comfortable talking about sex should that conversation arise” and “I’m nosy and want to know how Other (Disabled) People do sex.” One is great! Nashirakins already explained why the other is not great.
I want to be clear that I did not at all refer to disabled people, nor did I mean to. I am curious about how my best friend (who is also a cis, white, “typical” woman) does sex – I am so curious about things that are considered taboo. I commented in reply to Selma because it seems that we have similar curiosities.
Yes. All of this.
(First paragraph only. None of the second paragraph. That dude is garbage.)
Charlie has the ideal napping place. He should spend more time in it!
As much as I hate to dispel the image of tuberous perfection, Charlie is having a bark bark bark problem. It seems like he reacts to any small noise (even ones that I as a weak and puny non-potato can’t hear) with full alarm. Since we are staying in a condo building right now, this is, shall we say… non-ideal.
Does anyone have any ideas to make him stop? I try ignoring him (but feel guilty about all the other people who are listening) and distracting him (he is VERY FOCUSED on warning me of danger) and right now the only thing that seems to be working is taking him outside every half-hour to an hour, which is a lot of work but buys me some temporary peace. Plz help.
Does he have a favorite toy or game? Offer it as a high-value distraction: “Ohhh, Potato — look at the ball!” And praise and offer treats when he stops barking and takes the ball. I taught my dog to “touch” (tap my hand with her nose) as a thing to do whenever it appears she’s going to go off and do something antisocial.
Danger of that is that you mmight end up rewarding/reinforcing the barking. The best way to use redirection with toddlers (and, I assume, dogs) is to catch them before they start doing the thing you don’t want them to do, so that the redirection heads them off instead of letting it become the consequence of the unwanted behavior.
Also, if the dog is reacting with alarm at background noise, can you raise the level of non-alarming noise in the apartment, like a white noise machine or music or even the TV on low sound?
The treat is offered for the trick instead of the barking — “go get the ball, yay, have a cookie”. I have a neighbor who has inadvertently taught her very smart chi to bark like a lunatic for a treat, because she offers the treat itself as a distraction to shut the dog up. Most dogs can’t make the connection of “I was barking at the UPS guy and this got me a game of ball and a cookie.”
I have heard that these things work wonders:
http://www.thundershirt.com/
I, however, do not have a potato for a companion, so I can’t confirm if they work.
My little canine monsters are of a naturally barky breed. I learned from breeders:
1. The barky habit must be addressed in puppies. Adult dogs (of this breed) seldom unlearn the barkiness.
2. Pair a spoken command with your teaching strategy. Later, when the puppy is well-trained, the spoken command will be sufficient as the occasional reminder. I say “Quiet!”, but not loudly, because that’s like barking. But my tone communicates firmness and displeasure, all the same.
3. Situations that used to elicit barking are occasions for praise and rewards when dogs manage to keep quiet throughout.
When my dog sees the UPS guy, I usually do a LOUD CLAP and/or bang something against the table, which distracts him for a moment. In that moment, I ask him to do some command (sit, or something easy), and then move through a bunch of different commands, offering treats. This routine has also gradually decreased the number of things he barks at/time he spends barking, even when I don’t do it.
If I can catch him when he’s alerting to something but before he starts barking, I do the look at that/look at me protocol, like they have here. This is also really effective at getting him to not go nuts about stuff (sometimes we can walk past other dogs outside now!), though, again, somewhat slow going.
If that doesn’t work, I know some people who have had success by teaching their dog to speak on command. Seems counterintuitive, and will probably suck for your neighbors while you’re doing it, but I guess it’s much easier to teach a “quiet” command if they know how to do the opposite. I think you just do something that will make the dog bark (they used a knock on the door), praise for “speak”. When he gets the hang of that, use the “speak” command, and then praise for “quiet”. That should teach him to shut up on cue.
I actually am going to chime in on the Speak/Quiet. My dog knows “WOOF” “boof” and “hush.” She can shout-bark or whisper bark on command. Teaching her was so fun! And now I have a dog that can do a really cool trick, and it’s easier to get her to understand that she needs to whisper-bark (for cookies) than it is to get her to understand that there’s nothing to be alarmed about. She is v. neurotic. It also worked very well on the golden lab/retriever we learned it from, but they just did “Speak” and “No speak!”
This Youtube channel is by an excellent trainer who uses positive reinforcement only. No matter what method you’re using you have to be sure consistent and quick, to make sure they make associations correctly. Can you have treats on hand, and have him come sit when he starts barking? One for coming, one for sitting, one for staying quiet (that’ll probably be the harder part).
I have a yapyap dog (Chihuahua) and I’ve had good results with distracting her. If we hear the noise at the same time, I call her over with a cheerful voice and cuddle the hell out of her–she can restrain herself because a) she’s been redirected b) she’s been rewarded for ignoring the noise. If she hears it first I can sometimes catch her before she really gets going because I see her ears go forward and her body tense up. But then sometimes she just shoots off YAPYAPYAPYAP and it’s basically impossible to stop her because I’m yelling at her (her yaps are LOUD) and she just doesn’t give any fucks. At that point I can usually shame her into shutting up but I don’t think she understands why.
Good luck!
You can also try total and complete ignoring. Don’t just ignore the barking, when the dog is barking he does not exist to you. Don’t look at him, don’t tell him to be quiet, nothing. My dad does this & he has lots of dogs, all pretty well behaved (only works if you do it while they’re puppies though).
I like HarpersGhost’s suggestion about the neighbors.
HI CHARLIE YOU SO CUTE
On barking: You’re probably not going to like this, but a super common reason for barking is that doggo is under-stimulated. They bark bc they’re bored and barking is a fun & self-reinforcing behavior (it’s like the dog version of scrolling mindlessly through FaceBook?). Potatoes are working dogs, right? Herders? Working dogs need like ~4 hours of physical and/or mental activity every day to be satisfied, non-barky pups. Using aversives (spray bottle & etc.) can help direct that extra energy away from barkng, but often you can solve the under-lying problem by giving doggo more to do.
Annnnd that might explain why taking him outside every hour is keeping him quiet? It scratches the itch.
The absolute easiest thing you can do to tucker out a pup is strap a doggy backpack on him anytime you go on a walk. Fill it with heavy stuff (frozen water bottles are great in the warm months) and voila, tired potato! The more you walk with him, the better. Also giving him approved things to chew can help and takes almost no human effort!
Other good but more energy-intensive options are training of any kind–mental stimulation drains them just as much (more than?) physical stimulation. Obviously agility and etc is great, but just spending 30 mins every day teaching dumb tricks at home can make a huge difference (e.g., stay, sit pretty, go to various parts of the house on command, etc.)
For maximum tired-making, you can combine walks & backpack & training. Strap on a backpack and train good walking manners while on walks. I have a low-energy dog and she can do like 15 minutes of training-while-walking before she starts sighing heavily and trying to lay down.
Also, LOOK HOW CUTE DOGGY BACKPACKS ARE:
Alberta wildfires: it is so lovely to see the number of people who have stepped up to help. (I have a lot of ties to Edmonton, not just…random from Ontario.) Tons of vets have basically opened their doors to people fleeing with pets or whose pets are injured. Tons of people offering up spare rooms to sleep or places to store their stuff, charge their phones, shower and wash their clothes, etc. A bunch of great people that I know are either out fighting fires or they’re training others to spell the current firefighters so…it is lovely to see the amount of humanity in the face of a horrible tragedy.
The pictures and videos are horrifically scary.
Yes, I am in Edmonton, and seeing all the offers of help, and the people who just loaded up with cans of gas and water to help people stranded on the highway has amazed me and brought me to tears a couple of times.
Yes! My college roommate was evacuated with her infant who is less than a month old, and shared a photo today of the baby supplies that someone dropped by her camper while she was sleeping. What a horrific situation, but beautiful to see the best of people in the response.
That Esmé Weijun Wang piece is great, and reminds me of the Hazlitt piece on blazers from last week, which I don’t think was posted here? Apologies if it was. But as a person who loves/is semi-obsessed with clothing, both of these pieces show what I love about it – the possibilities for changing how other people see you, and how you see yourself.
OMG I WAS THINKING ABOUT BLAZERS THIS MORNING (I am currently wearing a blazer).
I’m incredibly socially anxious (I don’t get agoraphobic nearly as much anymore though and I’ve stopped throwing up before meeting new groups) and clothing is my armor. If I feel like I’m well dressed, professional, and stylish no one can touch me and I don’t need to worry about that one part of my life. For me, my clothing is how I wish I was, and if I fit into it, I’m just one step closer to being who I want to be.
Also, I’m a librarian, and sometimes you gotta buck the stereotype. I already have a cat and knit, sometimes the cardigan is just pushing it too far, but the office is too cold for just a blouse.
Yes! I love blazers/jackets for armor reasons, as a youngish female PhD student. I’m not particularly socially anxious, but I do worry about not being taken seriously.
This is why I own, like, 10 black blazers now.
I only own 3 black ones of different weights, 4 grey, 1 striped.
Although, technically, 2 of the grey ones are motorcycle jacket style things which I don’t think counts.
Every time I go to a Goodwill I end up with a gray wool blazer. They never quite fit right, but one of these days…
My closet is full of blazers that I can’t wear yet because I keep neglecting to take them to the tailor–I’m five feet tall and therefore have unusually short arms, so the sleeves are *always* way too long, even with petite sizes. But I keep buying them anyway….
I’ve had good luck with the petite section in Talbots (although they are pricey!) I’m 5’2″, and the arms are usually the right length without having to be altered.
I love blazers, but tend to never go to the dry cleaners so I can’t wear mine much. Does anyone have any machine-washable blazers to recommend?
I see them online sometimes, but the chance of a blazer I haven’t tried on fitting right is pretty slim.
I have a machine-washable oversized Madewell one that I really like… and it looks like they’re not carrying it anymore, I’m sorry! But maybe that’s a good place to watch for them in the future.
I have a black jersey blazer from Uniqlo and I’m obsessed with it – so comfortable and soft, while still looking like businesswear! It’s labeled hand wash cold, but I treat that as machine-wash cold (on delicate if I’m feeling responsible), hang to dry.
Uniqlo blazers in general fit me really really well, but obviously YMMV.
Modcloth’s ‘Academia Ahoy’ blazers are my JAM. They look nicer than cardigans but are secretly hoodie material and soft and lovely and I have successfully machine washed mine. I let it drip dry.
I am the Worst because my immediate reaction to this piece was “the horchata place on St. Denis is FAR INFERIOR to the one on St. Laurent, what are you doing.”
Today in (Feminist) History!! [Archive]
This day in 1911 saw the birth of Pritilata Waddedar, a Bengali educator and revolutionary nationalist. Pritilata was born to a family in Dhalghat village in Patiya upazila of Chittagong (which is now in Bangladesh). Her father believed in the importance of education, and so Pritilata was educated in several schools, eventually attending Bethune College in Calcutta. After finishing school she returned to Chittagong and became the headmistress at an English medium secondary school.
In June of 1932, she joined a revolutionary group as part of the Indian Independence Movement (against colonial rule in India), led by Surya Sen. As part of the group, Pritilata took part in many raids, including supplying explosives to her fellow revolutionaries in one battle.
In 1932, Pritilata was chosen to lead a 15-man team of revolutionaries in an attack on the Pahartali European Club, which had a sign which read “Dogs and Indians not allowed”. Surya chose two women to lead the attack because he wanted it to have an even more dramatic effect; however the other woman, Kalpana Datta, was arrested a week before the attack and so Pritilata assumed leadership alone. On the day of the attack, September 23 932, Pritilata disguised herself as a Pubjabi man, and lead a group of male revolutionaries into the club to attempt to burn it down.
After torching the club, the revolutionaries fled but were later caught by British police. Pritilata, who was only 21 at the time, committed suicide by cyanide rather than be arrested by British authorities. Given that this had been part of the plan to avoid capture, Pritilata had a suicide note within the breast pocket of her uniform. It read, in part:
“I wonder why there should be any distinction between males and females in a fight for the cause of the country’s freedom? If our brothers can join a fight for the cause of the motherland why can’t the sisters? Instances are not rare that Rajput ladies of hallowed memory fought bravely in the battlefields and did not hesitate to kill their country’s enemies…If sisters can stand side by side with the brothers in a Satyagraha movement, why are they not so entitled in a revolutionary movement. […] I earnestly hope that our sisters would no longer nurse the view that they are weak. Armed women of India will demolish a thousand hurdles, disregard a thousand dangers, and join the rebellion and the armed struggle for freedom.”
Pritilata was considered the first woman to have martyred herself for India in their fight for freedom against the British.
Also on this day:
• On this day in 1809, Mary (Dixon) Kies was awarded a U.S. patent, for her technique of weaving straw with silk and thread; making her the first woman to ever receive a patent. The popular method of braiding straw for hats was actually invented in 1798 by a New England woman named Betsy Metcalf, who is credited with having started the American straw-hat industry. Though Betsy could have sought a patent thanks to the Patent Act of 1790, women at the time were not allowed to legally own property independent from their husbands. As such Betsy, like many women of the time, did not bother to attempt patenting her invention. Mary was the first one to do so, and was congratulated by the First Lady herself for her contributions to the New England hat industry.
Just amazing. Thank you!
Thank you so much for your continued work on these. It’s such a great series!
These are so fascinating and I’m really glad that you do them!
President Obama visited Flint yesterday, and did some pretty epic smacking down of small-government ideologues, which presumably includes Rick Snyder. (This is not a well-written article but does contain some Presidential quotes that are worthy of, like, inscribing on every single public building ever.)
“Listen, it’s not government overreach to say our government’s responsible for making sure that you can wash your hands in your own sink, or shower in your own home, or cook for your family.”
PREACH
*happy sigh*
You know that guy in the book club article who was all “hahaha no we’re not gay, and to prove it I dated that woman!” and “my book bros set me up with a divorce attorney!” so, even though the other book clubs are drawing ‘no’ signs over Oprah’s face and using hand-grenades to rate books, he still comes off as the worst of the lot?
Yeah, that was my sister he was divorcing. He’s a publishing industry journalist and I’d be 0% surprised to find he pitched this article to start with.
(Don’t worry, sis and I are ensuring that their daughter gets all her opinions from us.) (Not that he has much time to spare for parenting.)
Sweet Jesus.
UGHHHHH….
So we can confirm it’s not satire, then, if you know someone in it?
Depends on how many tears for humanity you wish to weep today.
Oh my gooooooooooooooooooooood.
I’m not physically capable of the amount of eye rolling I’d need to do to properly express myself. UGH!!
I love the way you write.
“Yeah, that was my sister he was divorcing.”
Not whom my sister was divorcing, but what. Good and proper. He earned his demotion to “what”.
Please extend my congratulations to your sister.
She’s been (rightfully) congratulating herself for years now.
😮 😮 😮 😮 😮
This is EXACTLY the kind of dirt I come to the Toast comments for, well done.
< Daveed Diggs voice > Whaaaat? </ Daveed Diggs voice >
Wow. He has “Cultural Darwinist” in his Twitter bio (and that’s when I Ctrl-Wed right out of there, rolling my eyes).
Although… I work in publishing and could not have told you who he was before today if you’d held a gun to my head, so I guess Cultural Natural Selection MIGHT actually be a thing! He’s just on the wrong end of it.
Is it okay if I fall madly in love with you just for a little bit? Thanks!
Only if you are fine with the feeling being mutual!
Seriously, I’ve been going through a breakup and some other nonsense, and I found both this comment and your book recommendation from earlier quite cheering 🙂 Thanks!
((toast hugs!)) Banish all nonsense. Darwin* decrees it.
*Alfred Russel Wallace, in reality, but hey.
I saw you mention this in yesterday’s roundup, and I am still gobsmacked. Your sister might be the heroine of an obscure fairytale in which the wise maiden cleverly escaped the ogre’s lair and the ogre was so overcome with crippling insecurity that he began devouring ever-spicier food and ever-manlier books until he went up in flames, because, of course, spontaneous combustion is preferable to the words of a woman.
MAGIC MIKE LIVE IN VEGAS, you guys!
https://www.buzzfeed.com/lindsayfarber/magic-mike…
Our boy Chan wants to REVOLUTIONIZE the male entertainment industry! If you log onto the website, there’s a super in-depth, respectful survey because he wants to know what women want! He is a sweet, perfect gem of a puppy-human and my entire world is made of capital letters and exclamation points!
I reaaaaally don’t like all the personal info that survey asks for. (Not the sex stuff – I expect that; the name and phone number business.)
That’s totally fair and I agree. I almost didn’t do it but my name is super common and my number used to be my dad’s so I get trash calls pretty frequently anyway. If it makes you uncomfortable, that’s understandable.
Just put in 867-5309 with any area code whenever you need to give a phone number anywhere.
DUDE. Toastie field trip?
I am continually delighted with the ways that Channing Tatum has used his celebrity to be an Exemplary Man, and to make changes for the better in his old industry which he clearly still LOVES.
I love that he won’t ID as feminist, because he doesn’t feel he’s familiar enough with the movement to claim the label, but instead just going with “pro-feminist.” You beautiful, beautiful man.
I saw that this morning and for the first time ever in my life I want to go to Vegas, and also I would be perfectly happy to watch a live floor show of shirtless men doing chores and playing with puppies.
OT, but on my mind as a direct result of Sansa’s ear floof: has anyone successfully introduced a second cat into a one-cat household, where the first cat is v v shy? Are my dreams of kitties snuggling together and grooming each other painfully naive? All responses welcome except any that suggest my idea is a bad one.
We introduced two Very Much Only Cats to each other last year when we got Moa.
You will want to be able to close a door between them. They need to acclimate to each other’s smells by sniffing from a safe zone. Trade their places every so often so they get used to other-cat smells being in “their” space. Make sure to give Current Cat lots of snuggles and attention so that it doesn’t resent New Cat getting attention. Feliway diffusers may be a good idea (we didn’t use one). Baby gates can be useful later on in the process, so they can see each other without being able to fight it out. (They will fight it out eventually, nothing to be done about it, they will have to sort it out on their own in the end.) It takes a few weeks.
You never know, perhaps Shy Current Cat just needs a little feline company to come out of its shell.
My cats are not shy, but rather belligerent. It is 16 months later, and the fur rarely flies. Take some time off to be with them when introducing the new one, make sure you have enough litter boxes, ensure that the old one knows that you still love them (I have special mommy-monster moments with my Maine Coon to reassure him that he is still #1 in my heart), and maybe try some Feliway? It really helped when we amalgamated 2 2-cat households.
They might not ever be friends but they can learn mutual tolerance, especially if the new cat is a kitten. It’s exponentially harder to introduce two grown cats.
Uhh define success. My Cat is very shy, lives under the bed, and only comes out at night/when I’m present and seated (she will not approach me when I’m standing/walking despite having her 13 years). And then last July we got Porch Cat, who we were totally not expecting to take in at all/keep. A lot of the techniques recommended didn’t work since My Cat only eat after everyone is in bed, Porch Cat ate whenever she saw food so the “feed on other sides of doors” things didn’t work. When Porch Cat was in quarantine I’m sure My Cat could smell her but I don’t know if she ever approached the door because I can’t stay up all night to creep on my weird feline. Now, almost a year later, Porch Cat has free range and can go into the bedroom and under the bed with My Cat and My Cat definitely does not like porch cat but sometimes they will sleep together in the same 3 foot space which is amazing. As long as Porch Cat doesn’t try to engage My Cat they’ll just sit quietly and we mostly accomplished it by throwing our hands in the air and saying “short this shit out yourselves!”
Also lots of Feliway plug-ins.
Yes, this can work. Our boy cat started off very bold but turned into a scaredy cat as he aged. After the older cat we had before him passed, we knew a new cat would be tough for him, but necessary to keep him active. Our tiny kitten absolutely terrorized him from the start (even after weeks of slowly introducing as others have described), but we have progressed to mutual grooming and snuggling, though it usually ends with the kitten nipping him and him crying and running away. I wish we had gone with a one year old cat instead of a kitten because I think her lack of chill is really hard on him, but as she’s mellowing and he’s adjusting it’s getting better.
My incredibly shy cat has reacted reasonable well to my roommate’s cat.
Beebs started off in a home with a lot of cats, and he DID NOT get along with them, which I why I adopted him. He hid all the time. After a few years of living alone with me, he came out of his shell a bit. He is still shy and basically a grumpy old man, but that’s just who he is.
When I moved in with someone with another cat, he was pretty shy, but kinda got over it. The other cat is younger (but still grown) and more energetic. Occasionally she ‘hunts’ Beebs, but they only fight for a few seconds before both lose interest. He swats at her if they get too close, but then she licks his head and they go back to ignoring each other. They’re not cuddling or anything, but they get along reasonably well.
We didn’t do anything to acclimate them to each other. They kept to their own space at first, and we just made sure they had their own litter boxes in separate rooms. There may be better ways to do it, but the world didn’t end!
I’m not sure my cat has ever actually liked another cat in her life, but she tolerates her cat-sister, who was acquired about a year later. Mine is a very one-person cat and it took her like three years to even sit on my partner’s lap. The first week with the second cat was very uncomfortable because they couldn’t be in the same room without hissing, and we had a one-bedroom apartment, so one person had to sleep on the couch with the new kitten while the other got the bed with the cat.
Now there is occasional grooming of each other, which inevitably turns into a scuffle, and no snuggling together, but they are happy to sit next to each other and coexist.
We had two cats who mostly hated each other, but they would put their differences aside and snuggle together in the winter if the outside temperature got below ~50 degrees. So maybe try turning the thermostat down…
We got a second cat and it worked itself out eventually. Cat 1 wasn’t shy generally, but wasn’t happy about Cat 2 being in his space and that resulted in him becoming shy for awhile. Cat 2 is very friendly, but had no boundaries which caused some kerfuffles and sent Cat 1 into hiding. In our case, it slowly, but surely got better. They don’t really snuggle with each other much yet, but they have developed a nice routine of licking each other which then usually turns into rambunctious play fighting for awhile and then they go lay down in different spots. Once in a blue moon, they will hang out together on the couch, and they cuddle here and there, but not a ton. We have had cat 2 for about a year and a half now and they have generally been pretty solid. I’d say we had about 3 months of kind of stressful transition, and then it settled to a neutral time and continued improving, so it’s not impossible, but it might be a bit tough for awhile.
We had four cats (sadly down to one now, and I’m not allowed to get another one until after the Big Move, which is totally fair because driving 2800 miles with four cats and a dog in the car was a nightmare and as it is we’ll be driving 2500 miles with two dogs and one cat and that will be quite challenging enough). Anyway, four cats, all acquired singly. First Cat was not too smart and loved everyone and everything (really, he was the sweetest fur ball you can imagine and I was absolutely gutted when he got cancer), so introducing Second Cat (our sole surviving kitty)–and the subsequent cats, actually–was not a problem at all (at least as far as he was concerned) even though she was very skittish. She came to us from a house that had two kids under the age of three in it and was traumatized as a result–the parents weren’t great about teaching their kids about how to treat animals so she tended to take a swipe at anything that came within a yard of her. Third Cat we acquired as a wee kitten–he was so outgoing and gregarious and he and Second Cat eventually came to an understanding. Fourth Cat was already 8 or so when she came to us–a friend developed sleep apnea and couldn’t keep the kitty because she (the cat) kept chewing holes in the CPAP machine tube and was also able to open doors so just keeping her out of the bedroom at night was not an option. Anyway, Second Cat (the skittish one) and Fourth Cat took a really, really long time to adjust to living together. Fourth Cat had been an only cat for a very long time, and Second Cat was used to being the dominant cat in the family. They finally negotiated for a separate peace, and would occasionally snuggle in the winter if it got really cold in the house. So yes, it can be done. Just expect a certain amount of negotiating to go on, and only intervene if things get violent. Usually the animals will manage to work it out on their own.
Dang, I am in a Sci/Fi and Fantasy book club and it’s basically perfectly balanced between male and female attendees & subject matter/book choices! It’s not that hard! Why would people join a book club that wouldn’t expand their interests or stretch beyond what they always read? Sounds so boring.
Because you are not looking to be entertained or enlightened, you are looking to have all of your toxic opinions reaffirmed.
Kinda defeats the purpose of a book club, right?
I took a Science Fiction class in college, at a military school (20% female students), with a male teacher, and not only was there an entire section that focused on stories that specifically were about sex/gender, there were also plenty of female writers/books with lots of female characters sprinkled throughout. If my school could do it, there is really no excuse.
I was in my school’s Psi Phi/Fantasy club (ask me about the student activities fair where we got placed with the Greek organizations!), and there was excellent policing of creepiness and bigotry, as well as a healthy gender balance (although at one point there were 50% men, and it started weirding me out. Fortunately, several of them left).
This is only tangentially related to that manly book clubs article, but there’s an implicit idea there and in society that men are somehow hardcore and art is “manly” because it’s tougher, and more strenuous than this piddling little “chick lit” – which seems to include literally all books written by women. Men, I hate to break it to you, but women are hardcore. Think of all the bullshit we endure and survive and thrive through! Even the most privileged women! Maybe the reason (some) of us feel less of a need to Revenant our way though life is that we deal with enough threats, and danger, and nonsense on a daily basis. And, by the way, books by women reflect that.
And, if nothing else: WOMEN* PUSH PEOPLE OUT OF THEIR VAGINAS. Again, I will repeat: women grow other humans in their bodies and then push them out through their genitals.
I’ve read speculation online that the reason risk-seeking behavior like BASE jumping tends to be more frequent among white cis men is that literally everyone else in society is already dealing with a greater number of stressors and so we don’t need to seek them out. It makes sense to me, but I haven’t seen any evidence.
*And also some trans men.
My coworker and I were JUST talking about this last night! Her husband was whining and wanting pity because of some pain he was in (and he’s a good guy – but you know, a lot of cis men are babies re: sickness & pain… at least so I keep hearing). I said, I would love to be able to give them cramps for a week and see what happened. Let alone, labor and childbirth?!
This is why women live longer.
Men CAN experience period pain for a week, thanks to a Japanese inventor. I was sure i saw a buzzfeed video of this, but cannot find it now. But! If you like your news arty: http://www.thefrisky.com/2016-02-26/men-can-now-e…
My otherwise mostly lovely cis male partner is THE biggest baby when he gets hurt or sick. I can barely stand it. He will get the same little cold as me and complain as if it is the plague.
Ditto. And then I get the same cold and I have to deal with being sick /and/ taking care of the toddler, /and/ listening to his moaning and complaining, /and/ taking care of him too? Nah, you gotta get your own orange juice dear.
Relevant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbmbMSrsZVQ
I was so hoping that someone would post the Man Cold bit so thank you!
Poor little bunny.
Makes sense to me. I don’t need to jump out of a plane to feel a genuine and all-consuming fear for my life. I just need to go for a little jog in the evening and wait for the cars full of men to start following me.
I have this talk with my girl friends all the time. I think about how much we handle on a daily/weekly basis — not just our full-time and secondary jobs, not just the majority of the housework — also the social calendar, remembering family’s birthdays, making sure we have gifts — on top of dealing with periods and cramps, or pregnancy and birth. And they whine about not getting to sleep all day, or expect a cookie for taking out the trash ONCE.
But we’re the weak ones. Right.
RE: remembering family’s birthdays: I refuse to take care of sending cards/presents to Mr. Snake’s family members. So my brother’s kids and my parents get birthday and Christmas presents, and his siblings’ kids don’t. (The adults on his side of the family all participate in a gift exchange at Christmas where you’re assigned one person you’re responsible for. He does do that on his own, thank goodness.) This may make me a horrible person. I don’t particularly care. (Also, I have a great relationship with my husband’s family. They don’t seem to care about the lack of cards/gifts.)
Wow – what you said just clicked a bunch of things in my head. These guys fantasize about life being *tougher* whereas the women fantasize about life being *better*. This is extremely sad.
I have always loved the joke “Never trust anything that bleeds for 5 days and doesn’t die” because it’s just so OBVIOUS that women are more hardcore by nature than men are.
Related: I’ve heard it pointed out that if a woman wakes up in a puddle of her own blood, her first thought is “Not again” and then she changes the sheets. Not so much with men.
Somehow I saw today’s Prudie headline as ‘I caught my fiance with my sister’ until I clicked into it and – nope, incest again! Oh dear.
So much in Prudie, and so good as usual but this may be my new fav Mallory/Prudie reply, re: my coworker listens to rap, oh noes!
“No. The music she listens to on her headphones is not a line-for-line endorsement of every sentiment expressed therein; I thought we settled this with Tipper Gore back in the ’80s. It’s the year 20 and 16; I don’t think people will stop thinking of your co-worker as a good person if they ever found out she listens to rap. (Many people do; it’s a very popular genre.) Put your own headphones on and don’t worry about hers.”
<fire emoji> to infinity
That said, if Young Metro doesn’t trust someone…
Not to mention, the LW just heard a snippet through headphones that were not even on her(?) head! This LW just assumed that because it was rap, it was misogynistic and violent.
I’d like to read the lyrics to every song on every CD/LP/mp3/cassette the LW owns, personally.
Maybe it was Hamilton.
If there is any Bob Dylan on there, do we get to lecture her about being a good person?
In fairness, the misogynistic lyrics in rap music are a real concern. Just imagine how a generation growing up listening to a chorus like this would turn out:
You better run for your life if you can, little girl
Hide your head in the sand, little girl
Catch you with another man, that’s the end
…oh wait, I’m sorry, I’ve just double-checked my notes and that’s JOHN FUCKING LENNON.
“Hey Joe, where you goin’ with that gun of yours?
Hey Joe, I said where you goin’ with that gun in your hand, oh
I’m goin’ down to shoot my old lady
You know I caught her messin’ ’round with another man
I’m goin’ down to shoot my old lady
You know I caught her messin’ ’round with another man
And that ain’t too cool”
Modern-day MC…Jimi Hendrix!
Tangentially related, I was watching a baseball game last night and a commercial came on and one line in it was “You want to marry a girl, you ask her father” and I literally threw the dogs’ tennis ball I happened to be holding at the TV. (No, I have no idea what was being advertised.)
I am mildly disturbed by the amount of incest-y people that write to Prudie. Like, Game of Thrones isn’t meant to be a dating manual.
So, I’ve had to stop going to writers conferences because of incest stories. I do some work on “inspirational memoir” and the number of people who pitch their stories about incest to me are overwhelming–to the point where I have to distinguish categories between “regular rape” and incest. And then I have to let them down because personal tragedy in itself doesn’t make a great read, even if it’s therapeutic to write. I’m not emotionally equipped to do it. I *did not* know that this was an epidemic until I became a safe person to tell these stories to. But it makes me think we need a larger conversation, you know?
For a while it seemed like every highbrow book or film I came across featured either lesbians or incest, and on one occasion both (but not lesbians committing incest together). I don’t object to lesbians but it was weird that they were suddenly fashionable among male writers, and incest is, well, incest. They seemed to think they were being so edgy with this stuff!
“Oh dear,” but also “oh yessssss.” The best letters are always the strangest.
(with the obvious caveat that I feel TERRIBLE for LW and would not wish this on anyone)
<3 that Mallory linked to that reddit thread for this one.
I just read this, and then went straight over here without finishing the column because I knew there would be something in the comments about it 🙂
I really, really hope it is the same person from the Reddit thread, because I don’t think my heart can take two people being cheated on by their fiancee with *his* sister.
And *I* wondered if this was the r/relationships person who was made to sleep on the couch when her fiancé’s sister came over for the weekend, so he and she could get the master bed (which LW had bought especially for her bad back!)
I’m going to go read the letter now and find out because if it is…! (HAHA I see that Mallory linked to the letter on Jezebel in the first sentence of her response. I was too excited to go OMG before I go that far!)
I am balancing my sincere happiness for these men that they have carved out a space for themselves such that they are enjoying reading more with not understanding the appeal of what they have carved out at all.
Why did you need a men only space? So you could not read books recommended by your mothers? So you could avoid books with female protagonists or written by women?
Why does that even appeal?????
At least this book club didn’t seem motivated by the most common reason for calls for men’s only spaces and also the wackest reason: “There are women’s only spaces, why aren’t there men’s only spaces?”
I want to be supportive of men’s only spaces assuming
1) they can be divorced from reinforcing existing power structures in society and
2) men actually want them and aren’t just trying to prove some weird point about women’s only spaces
but every men’s only space that even qualifies seems… kinda pointless to me?
I suppose I don’t need to understand. Enjoy your books, performatively macho men.
I’d truly like to hear an example of a healthy desire for a men’s only space. I can’t imagine what it is.
Maybe when I’m in men only spaces, it’s with poor specimens, but I don’t get the appeal. Even when I’m with friends who are good guys, I tend to think, “I wish Natalie were here.”
I remembered now that there are some therapy and support groups that are men only. Haven’t seen a lot of data on their relative effectiveness, but that seems pretty defensible. I don’t know if that’s something I would necessarily want, but I get it.
For a social group though, I think you put it perfectly. “This is fun, but it would be more fun if the other half of my friends were here”.
An ex (cis, male) was an incest and abuse survivor. I think he would have benefited a lot for having access to a support group for men who had been there– toxic masculinity was a factor in the abuse and in how much difficulty he had seeking support.
I would be interested in a space to talk about the damages caused by performative masculinity and the pressure to maintain the performance, because even as someone who can comfortably use the phrase “performative masculinity”, and even though my life has gotten immeasurably better since I started embracing the parts of my personality that don’t fit neatly into masculinity as it’s commonly defined, I still feel that pressure all the time (and cave to it), and I think a lot of men do. And part of the problem is that a piece of the performance is not talking about it – therapy is seen as feminine, so you have to buck the pressure just to start talking about it in any serious way. That would be a men’s only space that could have some value.
I have a vague acquaintance who is involved in some sort of Iron John, mythopoetic sort of group, and it seems to me like the parts of it about helping men be in touch with their feelings may be healthy? But then they also seem to think that masculinity and set gender roles would be great if they could just get society to define them right, which seems less healthy.
My male partner retired last November, and you wouldn’t believe (well, maybe you would) the number of comments we both get about how do I handle having him underfoot now. IOW, cooking and cleaning is my job and now he’s encroaching on my territory. I can tell these comments bother him, both being seen as a man-child incapable of taking care of himself, and not getting credit for any cooking and cleaning he does do (or has done when he was working). But here’s the thing. Exploiting gendered expectations has never been a problem for him otherwise. He’d be fine with me doing it all; it’s the pointing it out that bothers him. His ideal scenario would be me “taking care of him”, but him still being thought of as a competent, hard-working individual pulling his weight. A fiction which is a lot easier to maintain when your work is the one society rewards with cash.
So men only objecting to the patriarchy in the ways it negatively impacts them (men not being allowed to express themselves other than in anger, or men being seen as incompetents not able to take care of themselves) and wanting to keep the rest as is? Not healthy in my book. It just encourages them to wallow in how hard done by they are. And increases the disparity. Because they want to keep all the benefits of being men, plus add a few more.
Iron John! A friend of mine was approached to join an Iron John group as some kind of facilitator and when he looked it up the whole thing sounded really bizarre. On the one hand, they were genuinely interested in providing fun community activities for marginalized boys who might not otherwise have access to camping/soccer etc, but then when they explained their theory of masculinity it was really backward and essentialist.
For many years when I was little, my dad had a men’s group that had monthly get-togethers, and from what I can gather it wasn’t about excluding women or performing masculinity (see: the spicy food thing in the book club article), but about having a mutually supportive space to unpack feelings about responsibilities, career transitions, fatherhood, etc. (This was early-to-mid-90s, which I think is relevant in terms of the societal expectations re: men openly discussing emotional issues.)
So I can see it being useful to have a kind of fraternal space for socializing. The thing about the book club article, though, is that most of those groups seem to be positioning themselves not just as pro-men (“Let’s read books on topics that are of interest to the male experience”), but as anti-women (“We won’t read girl books about girl stuff, ewwww, moms”).
One exception, but also a very specific case, was in that PUA article from a while back, where an entire community in North Carolina turned against those gross coffee owners who’d been trashing their hook-ups in a blog. Then there was that…personal fitness trainer? (I’m picturing the Rock, of course) Who took them into personal sessions and would shout at them whenever they whined or tried to make excuses for themselves. That seems like a good use of a men-only space.
Tai Chi Trey
When I was a Girl Guide leader, people would always say to me “How come Girl Guides can be gendered and Boy Scout’s can’t? Why do we even need Girl Guides, then?” I never knew how to respond, because it seems really obvious?
Because I am a coward, I usually just said something about how even though they do similar things, they are not the same. For example, the last year I was a leader we made up our own badge for Women in Politics, since it just so happened at the time that riding was represented by women at all three levels of government. Of course, these are things that boys should learn too, but I’m not sure how into it they would be.
Regarding the abuse of children with disabilities: I wish I could say I was surprised.
My sister had severe chronic ear infections as a child and needed 1 special consideration in the classroom: Put her in the first or second row so she could hear the teacher. This was apparently too much of an accommodation for her teachers. She was pulled from school and homeschooled instead so she could actually hear instruction.
I had teachers actively encourage the bullying of students by other students because it’s not their fault if the kids do it.
Friends of mine in high school with learning disabilities routinely would tell me that their teachers treated them as subhuman. No one in authority would believe them.
Yeah, this has been going on for decades. Thank god these assholes are getting caught and punished now.
My brothers and I were literally homeschooled partly for this exact reason. The school refused to give older brother a seat in the front row, despite documented hearing loss. The school also punished that brother for “fighting” when the other boys would jump him on the playground.
Mix in me being neurodiverse and having no social skills and honestly, despite the problems that later came, homeschooling was a sound decision to keep us safe from non-family members.
I got detention for fighting in school too because the boys would jump me in the playground in front of witnesses!
I’m a girl! At least they weren’t sexist and didn’t think I could hold my own in a fight? Maybe? I don’t know; that whole time was a huge shit show.
I have mild hearing impairment for the same reason as your sister, and am an educator, (and the daughter of a special ed. teacher) and I’m shaking with rage that this happened to her.
Also the recipient of a week of detention for hitting a girl who tried to bully me when I switched schools in Jr. high (she didn’t realize I could throw a punch) Only time I ever got in trouble in grade school. Zero regrets.
This book seems right up your alley. I just ran across it yesterday.
Somehow, something reminded me of it….
That article about the men’s book clubs made me laugh at its patheticness. (what’s the real word I’m looking for?) Maybe if you’d read a book by women about women, you wouldn’t be such man babies who are afraid of being called gay or feminine.
I especially laughed that the guy who was asked if he was gay because he was in a book club had to clarify that he ended up dating the woman who asked.
Jumping in to say that I have a close friend who belongs to a gay men’s book club, that is just as disposed to be exclusionary in its selection of titles. In recent years they have done a better job of adding women authors to their list, but the group definitely resists the feminine. I always wonder if these no homo type dudes have any clue that their queer brethren have just as much capacity for misogyny as anyone else.
Isn’t that the plot of the Prince song “uptown”?
OK, I caved and read that men’s book club article. ‘No books by women about women’ because oh jeez, wouldn’t that be terrible… if you had to read a book by someone of a different gender… about a different gender…
But when women express a preference for books which aren’t openly misogynistic, we’re told that we’re close-minded fascists.
I think the weird thing is that they’ve actually made it policy. Most men manage to avoid all books and films by or about women without even consciously working at it.
My question is whether they are even allowed to read books with women in them.
I can’t think of many, although I can think of loads that only contain women in the most nominal way. They usually also contain weirdly thorough descriptions of which gun was used for which occasion as well as the brands of clothing worn by the main characters.
… the bane of my political/military thriller reading career was how few women there were and how poorly they were portrayed in the books that had such juicy descriptions of guns and clothes. And planes, and helicopters. Can’t forget the planes and helicopters.
Today I learned that the abbreviation for Canada’s national actuarial association (the Canadian Institute of Actuaries) is, obviously, the CIA.
Well done, you Canadian nerds.
It is my life’s greatest regret that I became an engineer instead of an actuary. To find out that I could have been part of the CIA is a bridge too far
Also the acronym for the Culinary Institute of America. Chefs! Undercover!!!
Heh. Buzzfeed is on the S*** List after that stupid black people video from a couple weeks ago.
Toasties! I’m gonna do my very first #saturdaylibrarian shift this weekend, so today and tomorrow are officially my Weekend. Which is good, because I finally have time to cry my eyes out over Fort McMurray.
I have so many levels of Feels about it right now, from all the politically inappropriate things to blame it on and a bunch of pointless personal grief even though I don’t know anyone there. I’ve just spent enough time in similar northern communities (as an outsider, never a resident) to keep imagining those folks dealing with that kind of loss.
And then getting enraged about companies blasting all the Twitter hashtags with their shitty offers of “free stuff” for Fort Mac residents – as if people who have just fleed their homes want your damn half-off appetizer after showing proof of address. Gatdamn. If you want to help people, donate money to the Red Cross, and do it quietly. Don’t blanket the airwaves with your self-aggrandizing bullshit.
“We had an accident one time. We read ‘Water for Elephants.’ It was a huge mistake.”
WHAT ON EARTH HAPPENED?? DID THEY ACCIDENTALLY HAVE A FEELING???
My dad actually belongs to a male-only book club, or at least he did. But they at least had a sense of humor about it, and it was pretty clearly a ruse to get together for dinner and beers. I’m pretty sure several members made it a point to never actually do any reading. idk what their selection policy was, but I do know my dad asked me for suggestions on a couple occasions so it can’t have been that bad.
New Dear Prudence! I guess there’s a corollary to “they’re a great spouse/partner, but”, and that’s ” they’re a great parent, but”.
Because that writer’s sister is NOT a good parent if she invites a man she KNOWS is a child molester into her house to live with her children. Mallory’s advice was the best and way more coherent than anything I could say (given that I’m *still* internally screaming “OH MY GOD” on repeat).
Yeah, and poor LW that she normalized being disbelieved so much that her definition of good parenting includes “Moves actual child molester into her home.”
I can’t believe the number of people who write in as though they are trying to do someone a favor by telling them not to do something because What Will Other People Think when it’s clear they actually want permission to express their *own* moral judgment. Mallory cuts through that bullshit like a fucking sword.
Most immediately I mean the person with the coworker’s rap music, but it seems like there is at least one in just about every column. I also will NEVER get over the neighbors whose kids built a secret peeping treehouse telling them they can’t be nude on their own property. . . bloody hell. Then there are all the people who feel it’s their job to tell their neighbors to stop smoking pot, because of whatever reason they can couch as concern and not condemnation. I would love to know how many of these people actually follow her advice, since she isn’t giving them the answer they so obviously want.
This is a perfect summary of the situation. Too bad we can’t do a follow-up episode like those restaurant renovation shows. “So did you end up following Mallory’s advice? No? And is that why you now live in a van by the river?”
I’m also not yet recovered from the peeping tomhouse kids and their awful parents.
Shoutout to Here’s That Bad Advice You Were Hoping For. It’s been a while since she posted but it is golden. http://thatbadadvice.tumblr.com/
Given multiple articles on the list today, I wanted to flag that I saw an ad for Autism Speaks on the Toast sidebar yesterday evening. The ad itself wasn’t offensive, but I reported it since it appearing at all didn’t seem consistent with previous stuff published on the Toast around disability advocacy. Maybe you guys have already seen a flagged ads report or something, but I just wanted to mention it here as well.
Go ahead and flag! We do not pick that stuff, and I guarantee it popped up automatically BC we talk about autism. Reporting ads is the best mechanism because it goes directly to the ad people.
Yay, glad I did it right! Thanks for running such an awesome website. 🙂
Did anyone notice that Jon Snow was wearing an actual DICK RIBBON:
http://www.vulture.com/2016/05/game-of-thrones-wa…
I did and it was GODDAMNGLORIOUS!
(i may have feelings…?)
Fellow British people will have had a very amusing newsreader-related vision on reading this comment….
FYI THE WHOLE FIRST SEASON OF CRAZY-EX GIRLFRIEND IS CURRENTLY FREE ON ITUNES.
Really? Yaaaaasssss
THANK YOU!
FOR REAL? OMG.
I had heard good things – guess what I’m going to download as potential flight entertainment for this evening? 😀
EDIT: anyone know why I can see it as free on my desktop when I click on that link, but it isn’t showing up as free when I look at it on the iTunes store on my iPad?
I have the same question! I told my sister it was free, but it’s still showing as being $24.99.
—I’m also now seeing that the version of the link where it’s free is marked “For Your Consideration”; is this supposed to be for Emmy voters?
In another “our President is just plain Neat” moment, this is an awfully ridiculously adorable thing that he and FLOTUS did for May the Fourth.
I am going to miss the Obamas so freaking much. I watched the full video of his White House Correspondents Dinner address and it was amazing.
That made my day. HOW are they so adorable?
Dedication and planning. Like the Underwoods, but with positivity and whimsy.
Going to miss them so much! Humor, grace, poise. Hard act to follow.
I would like to commend you on an A+ username, fellow Toast.
WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO WITHOUT THEM
Cry. A lot.
Applaud Hillary for her good sense in sending Bill on lots of international goodwill tours where he doesn’t wind up talking to anybody important?
BOOK ROUNDUP!
Toasties, I graduated law school a year ago, spent an inordinate amount of time working this year and with my heavy course load during the prior years, I am realizing I have read SO LITTLE since COLLEGE!!!! I loved books and now I feel like I am sure people who used to be shape but have stopped working out feel when they realize they are no longer in shape. Disoriented and overwhelmed.
I need book recommendations. Cool books, books I have missed in the last 4 years or books you think are timeless.
Sometimes its daunting to even know where to begin again when I realize how much has passed me by.
Hey, I am sure you’ll get some great recommendations, but just FYI there’s a book/reading thread in nearly every Open Thread, usually first page? So that’s a great place to start catching up on Toastie reads.
I’ll give you just one: The Turner House by Angela Flournoy. Deserving of every bit of praise it has gotten.
Also, tell us what you like! There’s a lot out there.
The best thing I have ever read in my entire life (and I read VORACIOUSLY as a child and have 2 degrees in Eng Lit to back up my claims of being a book lover) is called The Stone Collection by Kateri Akiwenzie-Damm. It is being published by a tiny publishing house in Manitoba, and is not getting much press, MUCH to my chagrin. I was hoping it’d be at _least_ shortlisted for the GG this year.
http://www.portageandmainpress.com/product/the-st…
My marginalia include the words “AUGH. I WANT THIS STORY TATTOED ON MY BRAIN”.
What are your interests/dealbreakers?
There’s a book/reading roundup in every OT, usually on the first page, and there’s a Toastie book club, but I’m sure everyone’s happy to give individual recs where interests overlap. I know I love to. 🙂
My general recommendations list is here. Nothing in that list is especially demanding or difficult in mindset or framing; I save those for folks I know better or who have expressed specific interests.
To help you become reoriented; Michael Silverblatt is host of KCRW’s Bookworm. Silverblatt is the imperative constellation – http://www.kcrw.com/news-culture/shows/bookworm
(Would love to hear CBC Radio’s Eleanor Wachtel of Writers & Company in discussion with Michael Silverblatt.)
For anyone who is an Audible member, the Daily Deal for today is Mallory’s Texts from Jane Eyre!
Help help help I may have only discovered on Tues afternoon that my big geostatistical research project and report in lieu of exam is due today at 5 pm and not on NEXT Thursday, and none of my data or software is cooperating with me, it’s already noon and I have to go work in the student computer lab! AAAAAAAAAAAAUUUGHHH! I only got 2 hours of sleep, which is not good. Send brain!
Brain and brain, what is brain?
Your geostatistical research project should be very simple. How many Earths are there? ONE. This is the only statistic that can exist in geostatistical research. It was a trick question all along.
Contrariwise, if anyone argues with you, they are clearly promoting the “many worlds” cosmological model in which infinite Earths exist simultaneously. However, each Earth exists in the same universe as its statistic, so the answer is still only ever ONE. They are just trying to trick you again. Chances are good that these troublemakers are from one of the evil alternate Earths. Be wary!
I’m sorry, we have a shortage of brain. Have a hug?
Oh no! Good luck! You will get it done, it will get done!
Good luck, you can do it! Sending good data and software vibes (since scientific software is always the actual worst)
Just need to whine for a moment because I am currently in bed with: a cold, menstrual cramps, and last not CERTAINLY not least HORRIBLE LOWER BACK PAIN FOR NO APPARENT REASON. I have movers coming on Monday and am supposed to be throwing a one-last-hurrah-for-the-apartment party on Saturday. I have no idea how I am going to pack up all my shit because I cannot move without crying. And all my besties are out of town for the weekend and I am horrible at asking people for help so I’m not sure how to ask not-as-close-friends to help me pack. Or if I even should? Maybe I just call the movers and tell them I need them to pack as well as move? I know they’ll do it, but I also know it will cost me $1,000 and am already feeling super stressed about money* because I am paying double rent for a month and a half so as not to leave my current housemates in the lurch when I move.
*Harkening back to Nicole’s post about money last week, my super stress is not really earned because I could take the money for this out of my emergency fund. Throwing out your back right before a move is an emergency, right? But I have lots of growing-up-poor fear/shame/etc that makes me not want to do that.
So: mostly just needed to whine about the triple whammy my body decided to put on my this week. But sanity checks re: asking for help vs being an adult and paying professionals also appreciated.
Throwing out your back before a move is most certainly an emergency! If you really can afford it, hire those movers and never look back.
Thanks for the reality check!
When you have money earmarked for a purpose, and the purpose arises, IT’S OK TO SPEND THE MONEY.
…sanity checks re: asking for help vs being an adult and paying professionals…
I don’t think that “asking for help” and “being an adult” are mutually exclusive at all. In fact, I’d argue that asking for help when you need it is one of the hallmarks of Adulthood.
If the folks that you would ask for help are just passing acquaintances, then yeah, call the movers. But if these are friends that you have a good relationship with but who aren’t (yet) on the level of besties, ask them! Explain the situation; ask for help. The worst they can say is “no”, and no one will think less of you for asking.
Hope you feel better soon!
Thanks! You’re absolutely right those aren’t mutually exclusive. Both asking AND paying for help are things that (for me) are about being an adult.
That said, I spoke to the movers and they said it would only take them a couple hours to pack probably (whereas my friends would likely take a lot of time from them and me directing them) so I think I am going to go for the professionals. But it’s a very good point that it doesn’t hurt to ask!
Having paid movers to pack our place before- it is a magical experience and they are rockstars. Enjoy it, and save your poor back.
Could you ask your housemates for help? It sounds like you’re doing them a solid, perhaps they can reciprocate.
Good morning, Christmas Village Guy is up for two awards.
NONONONONONONO
Jesus take the wheel.
What the ever living hell.
I recently had a convo with someone who dated one of the founding editors of the magazine that printed that crap, and apparently he and other founding editor were both RAGING alcoholics. idk why i feel this is relevant, but thought I would share anyway.
Is one the “Being a terrible partner” award?
DID HIS GIRLFRIEND GET RID OF HIS LYING ASS OR WHAT omg i am so interested to know what happened after he published
regrettably, there is no update.
I hope his wife insures his Christmas Village, then torches it for the insurance money and buys herself a new wardrobe.
In incredibly important DC news, a baby beaver was found wandering around near the Van Ness Metro station yesterday (which is probably the most exciting thing that has ever gone on near the Van Ness Metro station):
BABY why was it taking the subway did they find its parents is it safe now?
Animal control came and cotched it. Best guess is it got discombobulated, wandered over from Rock Creek Park, and was attracted by a bit of moisture seeping out of a fountain near the station. They delivered it back into the park because they determined it was old enough to survive on its own.
Can highly recommend both videos of the baby in action.
but it is so tiny how can it build a dam on its own?! also it got distracted by a fountain poor silly thing!!!
OH MY GOD THAT IS NOT A NUISANCE ANIMAL IT IS A CUTEST ANIMAL
I KNOW! Nuisance animal…
I am seized with anxiety even imagining the (v. busy) roads it needed to cross to even GET to the fountain from the park!
It is truly a miracle that any children (of any species) ever survive to become adults.
I sent this to MrChouffe, who asked the very sensible question of how the baby would know where to get off the subway, and my heart shattered into a million billion baby beavers.
Perhaps the beavers are looking to compete with Moscow’s metro dogs? It would make my Metro riding 100% more enjoyable. Right now the only things that get me really excited are catching a train relatively quickly at night, riding on one of the newest series of cars, and getting to my stop without any major stopping. Commuter beavers would be a significant step up.
Any opportunity to link to this short story.
The restraint by everyone in not taking that baby home with them is astounding.
I never knew how much I want a baby beaver to climb up MY jeans until just recently!
I have always suspected I would, but I now am certain.
I like this baby beaver very much.
I watched the video and am sitting here with eyes full of tears and a heart full of screaming empathy for a tiny baby beaver in a world of concrete and strangers just trying to find a fountain and maybe her mom, and why yes it is the first day of my period thank you for asking.
Texts from Jane Eyre is Audible’s daily deal today! I have never clicked ‘buy’ so fast and trust me I spend way too much money on Audible daily deals.
That book club article made me appreciate my father so much. He’s a retired engineer who just cracked sixty. In retirement, he joined my mother’s book club (and is the only male). He brings his elderly mother to the book club and they frequently recommend books to each other. He and my mother also pass books back and forth to each other and every year for father’s day, his birthday and Christmas he asks me to send him a book I’ve read and enjoyed that I think he might like. He and my mother during his first year of retirement had a two person book club where they read both science fiction and all of Jane Austen’s books together.
My dad and I used to trade books all the time, too! No need to have a chili pepper showdown about it, we just liked a lot of the same things.
My mom and I both like some of the same nonfiction, so we trade. I’m reading Hamilton by Chernow and she just finished it, so we will definitely be discussing it. It’s so silly that these guys would ignore their mother’s recommendations. Though sadly understandable, given other discussions of toxic masculinity happening.
It’s just so subtly misogynistic and condescending to their mothers. My grandmother is a really smart lady with excellent taste in books. Watching her slow fade into Alzheimer’s has been just wrenching for my family and one of our many losses to the disease is watching her struggle with being unable to read whole books now.
My mom and I love a lot of similar fiction. I actually buy her the newest Charlaine Harris book each year for mother’s day which I send on to her after reading it. It’s a good system for us.
ugh, yeah, mom totally schooled me on reading the Chernow. I’ve been somewhere in the 300s for MONTHS now and she coolly breezed through all 700 pages in the week before discussing it in her book group.
lol we should ask her, cause I honestly thought she read the entire Chernow book in 4 days while simultaneously working a full time job. Though maybe it was a week. Still, ridiculous.
I went through a teenage phase of disliking things my parents recommended. Now that I’m older and wiser, I can acknowledge that my parents have excellent taste, and do in fact know the kind of media I’d likely enjoy.
My family are all readers, so we all give one another books all the time. We hold grudges over books, too–my Mom is never, ever going to forgive me for finding the complete set of Barbara Pym at the used book store before she did.
Acentos nos ayudan a hacer lo que somos.
Hey, that man book club rule is like, the opposite of the rule we have in *my* book club – no books by cis dudes! Sometimes we read things written by women about men, but mostly it’s all laaadddiiieeesss. And it’s awesome. Shoutout to my Hornets, they’re all Toasties too.
That was actually the only part of the article that resonated with me. I'm afraid is classified as "beautiful prose but batshit boring" in my categorisation scheme. However, nothing to do with gender, c.f. Salman Rushdie.
I only lived in the UK for a few years, but I was still 0_0
Oh that book club. 🙁
I just… I can’t understand why anyone would rule out authors based on gender. Ever. You’re just *robbing* yourself!
Don’t read women? You don’t get Lois McMaster Bujold, possibly the single best living space-opera author!
Don’t read trans* folk? You miss Yoon Ha Lee, whose short stories have the most lyrical prose imaginable!
Don’t read men? You lose Brandon Sanderson, who’s created some of the most marvellous magic systems ever!
I just can’t… argh! If you love reading, then you love *books*. I can see boycotting individual authors (I never could re-read Ender’s Game once I heard what an asshole Orson Scott Card was) but for the love of spork *why* would you just completely ignore an author based on what they’ve got between their legs!?
And what do you do if the name is from a culture you’re not familiar with; do you look it up to make sure you’re not reading any books by icky women/men without realising it? Or do these people only ever read books by people with nice easy Western European names?
Can’t underscore this enough!
I love this website sooo much, but often find myself thinking “ugh, I don’t want to feel like I have to apologize for [i]all men[/i] all the time” — but, oh man, do I apologize for all those fucking age 50+ male white engineers 🙁
Please do continue with suggestions of female sci-fi authors!!
Oh that book club. 🙁
I just… I can't understand why anyone would rule out authors based on gender. Ever. You're just *robbing* yourself!
Don't read women? You don't get Lois McMaster Bujold, possibly the single best living space-opera author!
Don't read trans* folk? You miss Yoon Ha Lee, whose short stories have the most lyrical prose imaginable!
Don't read men? You lose Brandon Sanderson, who's created some of the most marvellous magic systems ever!
I just can't… argh! If you love reading, then you love *books*. I can see boycotting individual authors (I never could re-read Ender's Game once I heard what an asshole Orson Scott Card was) but for the love of spork *why* would you just completely ignore an author based on what they've got between their legs!?
And what do you do if the name is from a culture you're not familiar with; do you look it up to make sure you're not reading any books by icky women/men without realising it? Or do these people only ever read books by people with nice easy Western European names?