Ugh, Put Some Clothes On!

Today in “Holy Shit, Hypocrisy”, kick ass Twitter user @CardsAgstHrsmt has been posting Tweets from dudebros which say one thing…and then some pictures of them that say something else:

Yup. Women who pose half-naked lose the respect of dudes who happily post pictures of themselves…half-naked?!?  Really?

Just look at them, shameless and proud of their near nakedness, posting pictures and showing off.  Would you want your kid to bring such hussies home all like, “I want to marry him!”.  Nay, I say, nay! Just look at how little respect these men have for themselves!

Wait, what was that? I shouldn’t hold these men to the same standards as they’re holding women?  Why, I wonder? It’s not like there’s a double standard at play OH WAIT YES THERE IS!

See, boys (may I call you boys? Tough, I’m calling you boys), what you’re doing is what most mature adults would call “Being a hypocritical jackwagon”.  I’m going to assume that you probably are very aware of it, and are exploiting the fact that it’s a-okay for you to pose half-naked and get no shit for it, while a woman doing the same thing would be buried under the weight of the shit she would receive: creepy comments, harassment, calls of “slut” and “whore”, etc.  And heaven forbid if a woman held the same standards as you do.

“It’s just the way it is!” some folks will argue. “It’s a double standard, but there’s nothing we can do about it! It’s natural/human nature/*insert other evo psych bullshit here*!”

The only ones holding up that double standard are you, while the rest of us are trying to get past that sort of nonsense.  How many of these assholes (or those who nod right along in agreement) might have Tumblrs full of half naked women to wank to? Are any of them fans of upskirt/downshirt pics? Then it takes some damn nerve to judge anyone who volunteers to show off their bodies with the same pride these guys show off their pecs, abs, and chest?

My flabber is gasted.  Or it would be if I wasn’t oh so painfully aware of sexism. Do better boys.

Or at least cover up.  I can see your nipples.*

 

*Obvious Disclaimer is Obvious: Yes, I know the answer isn’t for everyone to actually put clothes on, but for everyone to be free enough to wear whatever amount of clothing they want, snap photos, and post them on any social media site they have access to.  Duh. Now you don’t have to argue for/against it in the comments.  Cheers!

Entitled Employers

Ugh, so there’s a meme going around whining yet again about how this generation is lazy and entitled and don’t want to work the high stress job of chef’s assistant and blah blah blah.

And of course the Millennial Hate Amen Choir starts up to agree and my eyes roll out of my head.

I read the requirement and immediately stopped at “comes to work when sick” and then stopped again at “comes to work when sick to prove that they are sick”. Call me germaphobic, but I’d rather not have anyone from front staff to kitchen staff to the folks who wash the dishes coming into a dining establishment sick. If that’s a definition of “hard work”, treating your employees like lying children, then give me lazy. My immune system will thank you.

And you know what? I’m done with being told that this generation is ‘lazy’ when it comes to jobs. Growing up, we were told that we had to get an education because working a McJob was the worst thing ever. And now we’re told that we’re too entitled because maybe we want to either work a job that pays more or that we want the McJob we already have to pay us more.

The entitlement is with the companies. They’re the ones who try to get double the work with half the staff. They’re ones who fire their employees and then rehire them as contractors. They’re the ones cheaping out on the hours so they don’t have to give their employees health insurance. They’re the ones who hire temps for 2,3,4,5 years, add on to their responsibilities, and don’t even bother giving them a raise, ever mind an upgrade to full time employment.

They’re the ones who feel entitled to their employee’s time outside of working hours. They’re the ones who feel entitled to their employee’s labor, but not enough to pay them well for it. They’re the ones with no loyalty to labor.

And they got the damn nerve to get all pissy when workers demand to be treated as human. Yes, we want our breaks, yes we want our lunches, yes we want a space to pump breast milk, yes we want more vacation hours, yes we want sick days and be treated like adults when we take one, yes we want insurance, yes we want a better work/life balance, yes we want an actual work/life balance. Yes we want a better deal than the previous generation before us got because I’ll be damned if shit ain’t all that great for us now.

So, like, fuck that.

150 Armed Assholes

Hey, y’all.  I had a fever this weekend that got up to 102F. Fun! Now for the point of this post:

I don’t have words to describe how I’m feeling about this current fuckery up on Oregon. Not for the hypocrisy of the media treating these assholes not as the terrorists they are, not for the assholes on social media twisting the very definition of “terrorist” to not include this so-called militia of piss pants regressives who just don’t want to pay taxes, but want to use federal land that’s marked so they don’t use it all up raising their damned cattle. Not for the hypocrisy of these piss pants whiners defending two poaching arsonists who COULD HAVE FUCKING KILLED SOMEONE with their attempt to hide their poaching attempt. And certainly not for the hypocrisy of these assholes to show pictures of the uprisings in Ferguson and Baltimore, like white people have never overturned a car or raided a store ever.  I guess pumpkins and sports teams matter more than black lives.

When they’re not using pictures from Venezuela and calling it Baltimore. 

This gent, Julian Long, took all the words, made them beautiful, and then gratefully shared them with the world.

We keep being shown that violent, outrageous protests lead to decidedly delicate treatment from the authorities. We keep being shown that armed might is and must be respected – that secret wars and personal vendettas and organized forces with weapons and agendas get the benefit of being treated like humans while people with placards and megaphones are taken down like dogs. And we keep being told that this is how the system works. We keep being told to trust the system. Follow the system. Be aligned to the system.
So what comes next? What happens when this cloud finally bursts?
Explain that to me.
Please.

And I’m glad, because that means I don’t have to repeat anything.

Feminace Helps!

So apparently it’s a thing to arrest or make life shit for people who film cops doing (or failing to do, or outright fucking up) their jobs.

I thought we were all on board with the whole “Filming cops on duty is legal” thing?  I thought this has been a thing for, like, forever? Did anyone inform the cops? Did anyone inform the NYPD?

Here, let me help.

We should get signs, and put them on every locker, on every door in every bathroom stall, above every urinal in cop station, and pasted on the dashboard of every cop car.  And that sign should say:

I’m just trying to help spread the word.

Um, What?

I need a little silliness to make me not feel like my country is falling apart in a hail of angry white guy bullets.

Thankfully, I’ve been provided the perfect opportunity to laugh.  Someone read my previous post, and they didn’t like what I had to say.

Or maybe it was how I said it?

Lookie here:

Now, I’m surprised to see any pro-life anything reblogging my stuff.  I’m still a literal nobody compared to much more prolific and well-written writers out there (I’m mostly a ranter anyway).  But what’s really tickling my funny bone is I don’t even get what this person is trying to say.

Points on using “deathscort”, that always makes me giggle.  It’s such a cute little term they made up to make us seem a lot more dangerous than we really are.  What did I say in that last post, we’re handmaidens of Satan leading the innocent into Hell?  “Deathscort” kinda sums that all up in one simple, silly, nonsense word that sounds like a great name for a metal band.

Oh and the warning for “graphic content”? Priceless.  I see graphic pictures of fetal body parts every single time I get on the sidewalk, and this person warns for me saying “fuck”?  How precious.  Sorry that you live in a world where no-no words aren’t allowed, but I live in reality, and shit is fucked up when it comes to everything pro-life.

As for “what proabort deathscorts think”, I’m failing to see the problem. We support the right to have an abortion.  Duh.  Abortion is a thing that has always been.  Duh.  Pro-lifers publicly condone violent actions while secretly praising them?  Mega Duh.

So where’s the problem? Also, this is what I think.  And I’m only one escort.

It’s also super funny that this FB group has fewer likes than my friend’s cat’s Twitter account.  Hell, the comments on my own FB page has more likes than this group.  Not that it matters, of course, but it’s still really funny to point out.

So yeah, point and laugh.  Maybe it will help us all feel just a little less shitty about the world.

 

 

(UPDATED) Dear Businesses Run by White People:

Hey.

Come here. Have a seat. We need to chat.

Look, I’ma need some of y’all to not use Black Lives Matter to sell your shit. Your beer, your apples, your what the fuck ever.

You wanna slap “#Caramel Apples Matter” on your sign, Minnesota’s Largest Candy Store in Jordan, MN? Join the movement?  Fuck you and the horse you rode in on and the stable you got that horse from and the mare that gave birth to it. You can join the movement of my foot up your ass.

“Dark Beers Matter”? Really, Wynwood Brewery Company? Yeah, you canceled the event and apologized, not being aware of what the promoters were even doing, but still, someone thought this up, thought it was a good idea and went with it.  Who was this person?  They, that promoter, can fuck themselves and the entire damn stable.

It’s not funny, it’s not cute, it’s offensive as all fuck to a movement that demands police responsibility. It’s offensive as all fuck to the families of people who have been murdered by the police due to racist bullshit. Is this a joke to y’all? Is this so simple to you, something funny you can pick up to get attention.  Because boy oh fucking boy are you getting it now.  We’ve noticed what shitstains you are.

And still, there will be people who will actually DEFEND this bullshit.

“Don’t be so sensitive!”

“It’s just a joke!”

My response:

One more time…

Call me a humorless liberal, but this bullshit needs to stop.  NOW. If you can’t support BLM, then leave the fucking name alone.  Stop selling your shit on the backs of our dead.

Got it? Good talk. You can go now.

No love,

Me

Update: So a few people have left negative reviews on the store’s Facebook page.  A friend ended up getting this as a response:

Bravo, Facebook.  Pointing out racist actions by businesses: bad. Allowing racist, sexist, harassing groups to keep on keepin’ on: good.

Oh, and apparently everyone who objected to Caramel Apples Matter is a BLM ‘thug’ according to comments on the page as well.  Isn’t it super great when racists show off their true colors with their language?

Super great.

---

UPDATE the second: News of the sign made it to local press, with the owner claiming, as per usual in these cases, that it was a “mistake”.  At least there was an apology made, along with a desire to “move past this”.

No, sir, you don’t get to decide when we “move past this”.  And how the hell was this a mistake? Someone tossed the letters up at the sign and they just FORMED that randomly? Please.

Look, white people, just leave any and all things Black Lives Matter alone unless you’re offering support and allyship, and you won’t have these problems.  

Seriously.

Mourning Someone Else’s Choice: Pro-Life Selfiness

So, last night the hashtag #ShoutYourAbortion trended, thanks to one Lindy West, with people declaring that they’ve had an abortion and don’t feel the first lick of shame about it.  It was a challenge to the pro-lie of the miserable sad wretch who regrets their abortion and cries at hypothetical birthdays, either that or they never, never, never reveal such a shameful secret.

Because abortions are something to be ashamed of, right?

BLEH.

I have never had an abortion, though it’s the plan should the unfortunate happen, so I started Tweeting supportive stuffs, like the website for Exhale, an organization where people can call and talk about their experiences without judgement and a guilt trip. Because who needs that shit when you’re already working out how you feel about the abortion you’ve had, right?

Yes, I know, I’m acknowledging that not everyone skips out of the clinic afterwards (well, given how the procedure actually works, there’s probably very little skipping anyway). It can be an easy decision for some, it can come to be an easy decision for others, and for even more others it’s complicated.  Because this is how reality works.

As I said up top, it trended wildly.

There were pro-lifers on the hashtag of course, yelling out the same shit and boy oh boy do I wish I screenshotted the best/worst.  There were people going “use birth control!” right above or below someone Tweet about how their BC failed.  There were calls to come to Jesus or God contrasting with condemnations of burning in hell. The usual deluge of fetal snuff pictures, ‘whores’ left and right, and the Pro-Choice Butts* were out in force.

Usual stuff.  But what got me all writey/ranty was the number of people who seemed…entitled?…to someone else’s choice.  Here’s a Tumblr post to illustrate my point:

Say WHAT?

You read that right, cats and kittens. Some Nonny has the sads because some stranger may have aborted their future wife.

Again, I wish I had screenshots, but the number of people saying crap like “did you tell your children about the sibling they’ll never play with” or “my best friend had an abortion and now my kid doesn’t have a best friend”  or “that’s one child I couldn’t adopt” or “I’ll mourn your baby FOR you”  was mind boggling.  My flabber was gasted.

And then I got pissed.  Because for all the claims that people who have abortions are selfishly prioritizing their lives over the ‘baby’ inside them, these oxygen thieves have the nerve to stake a claim on the reproduction of complete strangers. What the entire fuck is that about?

It shows, once again, that this isn’t about the pregnant person at all.  They really do care more about the ‘baabbbee’ than anything else. Nothing else matters, not the situation, finances, relationship status, or fucking health of the walking uterus.  Nope, everything will work out perfectly once you decide to keep that baby, by gum.  As you know, pregnancy is super easy to endure for everyone, especially when you didn’t want to be pregnant in the first place. And just think, you’re providing some rando with a potential friend or even a spouse! Isn’t that amazing! Praise Jesus! Diapers for everyone!

And they still want to claim that WE’RE the selfish ones.  Get that shit out of my face.

I needed an excuse to use this gif again.

(EDIT: realized I didn’t address that aside)*”Pro-Choice Butts” are my name for those who have to have conditions for their support of the right to an abortion, usually starting their sentences with “I’m pro-choice, but”.  I don’t think they’re actually pro-choice, and are more like judgmental assholes.

The Angry Black Chick

Once upon a time, I was an Angry Black Chick.

I know, some of you are saying “You’re an ABC right the fuck now”, but hold your horses, I’m telling this story.

I did a segment on a friend’s podcast where I affected a ‘ghetto accent’ and ranted about whatever was on my mind.  It was fun back then.

I look back on it now and realized I was doing a weird version of Chill Black Girl, performing for my white friends.  I’ve since dropped that, gained more friends, lost a few and am now at times Angry, at times Disappointed, at times Disgusted, and at time Mocking.

I tire of the stereotype of the Angry Black Woman, constantly militant and on edge, ready to yell “racist” at the slightest hint of wrongdoing.  For starters, it’s an off shoot of that other pernicious stereotype, the Strong Black Woman, constantly wearing the problems on the world on her back without complaint.

Fuck, if you had to carry that much shit, wouldn’t you be just a little pissed?

Also, it tells people that we have only have a few emotions, angry being the most prominent one.  It dehumanizes us, turns us into caricatures that can be dismissed.

And now I’m gonna talk about Nicki Minaj.  Nice swerve, yeah?

I’m so-so about her music.  “Anaconda” makes me wanna dance (if you haven’t seen someone twerk with a cane, you’ve not lived), and her verses on “Monster” and “My Chick Bad” make me feel like the eldricth creature I secretly am (shhhhh, don’t tell my partner. His sanity is too delicious). “Looking Ass Niggas” is amazing and the video is too.  I’m meh with her other songs.

I appreciate her weird style, her not-so-weird style, her insistence to young girls to finish school and don’t depend on no man, her insistence on doing shit her own way.  Love her or hate her, you gotta respect that from an artist.

I also didn’t watch MTV’s VMAs last night.  That requires cable, which we don’t have and watching TV, which I don’t do. Don’t worry, I’m not one of those snobs, I just can’t deal with the medium in a way that I still can’t explain, so our lovely smart TV is used by my partner when he wants to watch Netflix and me when I want to run the Pandora app or play YouTube bird videos for the cats in the office.

But, like most TV moments I want to stay informed on, I watched the hell out of my Twitter feed, and oh boy oh boy did  it light up when Miss Minaj called out human joke Miley Cyrus upon receiving her award.  Don’t get me wrong, Miley’s done good stuff with homeless teens and all that stuff, but her bullshit on Twitter is straight up White Feminism (TM).

And Nicki was awesome for calling her out on live TV. That captured video is just magnificent.

But of course, before the show even ended, keyboards were going with the thinkpieces.  About how Nicki savaged Miley, about how Nicki was “throwing shade” (wrong terminology, if you must use it, that was a straight up call out). Once again, for defending herself, Nicki gets thrown into the same box we all get thrown into when we act even a little “out of line”: The Angry Black Woman.

For defending herself, let me say that again.

When is this shit going to stop? I know that answer.  As long as that term is used to silence us, to make us the bad guy, to make us worth not listening to (like we’re children having tantrums “not until you straighten up that attitude”), that box will always be there.

No matter what message we’re trying to convey, people, usually white people and sometimes black men, will fear our anger so much that it’s not worth listening to the message.  And that’s bullshit.

So much bullshit.

A Prescription from Dr. Feminace, PH.D of Done With This Shit

(This was a Facebook post I did a few days ago, edited for your reading pleasure)

This moment of education is brought to you by a moment’s ire while trying to relax and save Thedas.
Look, ‪#‎SouthernLivesMatter‬ and ‪#‎BlueLivesMatter‬ and ‪#‎WhiteLivesMatter‬, here’s some seats. You need to take all of them. Consider it a prescription from Dr. Feminace.

(other campaigns that focus on actual marginalized groups – #nativelivesmatter and the like, are of course exempt from this ‘script. *raises solidarity fist*)

You’re missing the point so hard that you can’t catch a fucking clue with clue bait, a clue hunting rifle and covered in clue pee in the middle of clue hunting season. So you have to copy an effective campaign and try to look clever when you might as fucking well just use ‪#‎notallwhites‬, ‪#‎whataboutus‬, and ‪#‎imacluelesspieceofshit‬

Why do we say “BlackLivesMatter”? Because, if you bothered looking at the news longer than the latest ZOMG new story of someone getting shot by the cops, it’s bloody obvious that black lives don’t matter. If someone shoots and/or kills a cop, people go out of their fucking way to celebrate their lives, to mourn, to pull up happy pictures of good time, and (most importantly) to find the fuck what shot/killed them. Hell, people do the same thing when POLICE DOGS are hurt in the line of duty.

On the other hand, black victims do not even get the courtesy. Let’s look at that video of the cop throwing down a 14 year old girl while she screams for her mother over and over again. That black male that was shot two seconds after the cops stopped was obvious a dangerous 20 years old man with a really real gun instead of a little boy with a fake one playing in the park. Did that dead black guy have a criminal record that had fuck all to do with his murder? Any pictures of them holding their hands up a way that we can call a gang sign? Say, maybe they had weed in their system. You know how wild and violent they get when they’ve had their pot. So scary.  Shoot/harm first, ask questions later, if not never.

White killers get more sympathetic press than black victims.
Killer cops fucking up at their job get more sympathetic press than black victims.
ANIMALS get more sympathetic press than black victims.

That is what we are talking about when we say “black lives matter”, because it’s fucking obvious that they don’t in our society. Do you fucking get it now? It’s not about hating cops or white people or Southerns or what the fuck ever.  It’s a cry for help, a cry for attention (the right sort, the sort that requires change in our society), and it’s only getting louder.

But you can’t deal with that reality, can you? The press caters to your narrow-minded view of us, leaving you capable of calling our rage “stupid” and whining when we put our protests in your face so you CAN’T ignore our presence. You wag your fingers at us, but remain silent when your token Black friends express their feelings, then turn around and repost/reTweet racism memes that you and your White friends can nod their heads about.  You easily ignore our pain – and that is what copying that slogan is. Hide your lack of empathy by whining like petulant children upset that a sibling got a piece of a cookie compared to their whole one. Even if that sibling has been locked in a basement and beaten most of their life. Even if that sibling made the fucking cookies in the first place.

Because who cares, you’re not getting the attention right now. You’re scared and trying to make shit about you so you feel better. You try to co-opt movements because you need to not think about anything but yourselves (or have a single original thought, for fuck’s sake), because empathy is oh so hard, and you might have to work on seeing us as humans like you, and we see you.

Oh, we see you.

…okay, back to sweet talking Solas. I feel better getting that out.

Put Away The Fainting Couches: What is and isn’t an Insult

(CN: mention of slurs of various sorts)

There’s this thing where apparently being called a ‘racist’ or a ‘terf’ or a ‘homophobe’ is somehow considered such a great insult that there are pearls clutched and couched fainted on and ‘how dare yous’ thrown around, and frankly, I’m done with it.

Of course it is, White Guy

It’s something that I’ve seen on the left and the right.

I don’t “support” you, but don’t you dare call me a name like “homophobe”

…and it freaking annoying.  It’s derailing. Suddenly people have to take time out of their day to either reassure said person with their honor so besmirched, or arguing about “are they or aren’t they”, and the whole bigotry thing gets mostly ignored.  That isn’t the kind of ‘allyship’ we need.

What we need are people willing to get over their ‘honor’ whenever such accusation are tossed about and either (A) do some serious self examination and LISTENING to the people affected by the accused bigotry (If you’ve been accused of saying/doing something homophobic, and most of the people defending you are straight, you might want to check yourself) or (B) stick to your guns.

By “stick to your guns”, I mean quit complaining about being called such and stand by your statement. Understand that this may mean that those affected and their allies might continue to consider you a bigot and might not want to hear from you again.*  You’re just going to have to deal with that.  You can’t, say endorse someone who says that transwomen are just men affected by autogynophilla, say that you’re not a TERF, and expect transwomen and their allies to take you seriously.  That’s not how that works. Intention ain’t magic.  If you’ve caused offense, you either give enough of a shit to apologize (even if you don’t understand how – and surprise opportunity for education yay), or you unapologetically stick to your guns.

See how that works?

Also, these are insults: faggot, nigger, -tard, tranny, ugly, stupid, piece of dogshit rotting in the sun, professional victim. Words said with the intention to hurt, to harm, to reinforce stereotypes.

Homophobe, racist, terf, sexist, ableist, aren’t insults.  At the very least, they are descriptors.  Or a clue.  Now it would be super duper awesome if everyone took the Jay Smooth route of “what you did/said/supported was BLAH-ist” instead of “You’re a BLAH-ist”, but you know what? Expecting the marginalized to carefully curate their words all the damn time so they don’t sound so harsh and hurt someone’s feelings is bullshit.

So put away the pearls (or wear them with something cute), use the couch for something else than fainting, take responsibility for yourself and realize that there is something more important to deal with than hurt feelings and bruised honor at accusations of bigotry.

Like, you know, actual bigotry.

*Oh, and finding one or two of those marginalized who agree with you to push forward is shitty too. We’re not clones, we get to disagree with them and you. It’s “LOOK, I have Black friends” to the max.