Transgress

mombian:

Many of us have seen them: anti-LGBT “experts” who appear on the news spouting supposed “facts” about LGBT people—”facts” that are nothing more than fabrications or distortions wrapped in bias. GLAAD, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, today announced the launch of its Commentator Accountability Project, which aims “to educate the media about the extreme rhetoric of over three dozen activists who are often given a platform to speak in opposition to LGBT people and the issues that affect their lives.”

thedailywhat:

On Kony 2012: The Visible Victims Speak: Considering that Kony 2012 — the most viral video in Internet history — exploits the suffering of northern Ugandans to raise money, Victor Ochen, a victim of the Lord’s Resistance Army and a founder of the nonprofit African Youth Initiative Network (AYINET), thought it only right that they should get to see it too.

Ochen traveled to the city of Lira, where he and his NGO set up a makeshift outdoor theater so locals could watch Invisible Children’s much-discussed fundraising campaign, and decide for themselves if it helps or hurts.

According to a statement released by AYINET, over 35,000 people attended the screening, many of whom rode in on bikes from neighboring villages. Additionally, some two million northern Uganda residents tuned in to a live broadcast of the audio aired simultaneously on five FM radio stations.

Al Jazeera reporter Malcolm Webb, who was on hand to gauge people’s reactions, filed the following account:

People I spoke to anticipated seeing a video that showed the world the terrible atrocities that they had suffered during the conflict, and the ongoing struggles they still face trying to rebuild their lives after two lost decades.

The audience was at first puzzled to see the narrative lead by an American man – Jason Russell – and his young son.

Towards the end of the film, the mood turned more to anger at what many people saw as a foreign, inaccurate account that belittled and commercialised their suffering, as the film promotes Kony bracelets and other fundraising merchandise, with the aim of making Kony infamous.

A woman Webb spoke with afterwards compared IC’s approach of selling products with Kony’s image to “selling Osama Bin Laden paraphernalia post 9/11,” which she felt would be offensive to many Americans, irrespective of how “well-intentioned” the fundraising campaign was.

Last night’s screening was AYINET’s first and last. It announced this morning that it had suspended further screenings of Kony 2012 in light of the outrage it caused.   Wrote Ochen: “It was very hurtful for victims and their families to see posters, bracelets and t-shirts, all looking like a slick marketing campaign, promoting the person most responsible for their shattered lives.”

“Why give such criminals celebrity status?” asked people in attendance, according to AYINET. “Why not make the plight of the victims and the war-ravaged communities, people whose sufferings are real and visible, the focus of a campaign to help?”

[aljazeera / ayinet.]

(via themindislimitless)

The ‘Safe, Legal, Rare’ Illusion - NYTimes.com

YES. 

(via golden-notebook)

Might be a rerun on my blog, and if it is, it’s worth repeating.

(via timekiller-s)

(via themindislimitless)

queennubian:

woh-battameez:

thatfeministwithglasses:

“Hey baby”

“Well, don’t you look gorgeous”

“Smile love, you’ll look better”

Any of these sound familiar to you? Because they do to me, I’ve heard them plenty of times, usually shouted at me from strangers who demand my attention, because God dammit; they need me to know that I look good (well, duh!).

Sexist street harassment has been on the news a lot recently, well at least in Britain (America is to wrapped up in making sure uterus’s are being properly regulated). If you’re unsure about what I’m writing about then check out this link, which explains more in depth what’s going on; mainly that sexist street harassment could become illegal (finally!).

I, obviously, could not get behind this enough. Personally, I find street harrasment embarrassing, invading and completely unneeded.  However not all agree. I was talking to someone I know in IRL - a self confessed MRA (groan) - about this and he obviously wasn’t all to fond of the idea. 

“But, Gk, but”, he decreed, because he is a man and he decrees such things with his manly authority, “I’m being nice. I’m telling them how gorgeous they look, who doesn’t want to hear that? It’s just you feminists trying to ruin the fun for everyone”.

It’s true, I do try to ruin the fun for everyone, but that’s because I’m a miserable cunt, not because I’m a feminist. And over this matter, I don’t feel like I am ruining the fun for everyone, just sexist jack-asses (and I’m all about ruining their fun). Because sexist street harassment always, no matter what, alway boils down to one thing: entitlement. Whether the people perpetrating it consciously realise this or not is yet to be seen, but when someone shouts a remark at another, it’s due to entitlement; with the first party feeling entitled to tell everyone what they think.

I don’t care how nice you think I look. I don’t look nice - I look fucking great. Have you seen my ass? Jesus, it deserves an army. I don’t need your embarrassing remarks to tell me this. And sometimes? Sometimes I don’t look nice. I’m fucking miserable because I’ve just finished another shitty 14 hour shift on A&E and I don’t need you tell me to smile because my appearance isn’t up to your standards. I’m not here to fucking appease you and your entitled male ego.

This isn’t to say that this doesn’t happen to men, because it does. All bodies are fetishised and edited to produce an image that we can fawn over and judge, usually produced to make us feel bad about ourselves so we buy some * miracle* product that will make us attractive to opposite sex (because everyone is heterosexual, amrite?). But it is much more acceptable to judge women and their bodies (or people perceived as women) - because sub-consciously we’ve been taught that women’s only contribution to this earth is to look good and to be consumed by others. And that’s all your wolf whistle screams to me. It doesn’t say “oh what a lovely young woman you are, I bet you have lots of interesting views on politics that I’d like to hear”. It says “I like what I see and I need you to know this, because that’s how we both get validation”.

This sub-conscious view, that women are here to look good means that men who cat-call expect women to be grateful for their praise, when a lot of the time were not - we’re hurt and embarrassed. And if your like me, the abrasive type, you tell these people to fuck off out of your space. I’ve lost count the amount of times I’ve been pushed, spat at and called a bitch because I haven’t been the right amount of grateful for the wolf whistle directed my way. Fuck that noise - you don’t want to be prosecuted for harassment, yet you feel it’s acceptable to get mad when someone isn’t grateful? Seriously, fuck that shit.

Whether you like it or not, what you are doing is harassment. You are invading in on someone else’s space, to tell them what you think of them - because you are assuming that it’s your right, that you’re entitled to do this. I can promise you that the vast majority of people do not give a flying fuck what you think. I know I look fabulous and the only reason you don’t like me not appreciating you telling me is because you’re scared that I don’t need you’re validation.

Look at that, GK being her usual fabulous self. 

Street harassment is a big deal here too, only the news isn’t too big on reporting street harassment, at least not at this moment. We are still in the post-March-8 euphoria. Anyway, back to what GK was talking about —

Here dudes cat-call (they lovingly call it ‘showing our verbal appreciation’), and since vespas/scooters are all the rage here (or usually in most cities that are not Mumbai), they deliberately slow down, honk, laugh and leave. Sometimes I’m walking, listening to music and a car slides near me, a door opens and there’s an invite to “have a good time”. And this happens when I’m in a hijab-esque head-covering to protect me from the sun, so people don’t even see my face. And when you swear at them, *they* get pissed. Argh. Someone I know, has similar episodes to narrate as well — turns out straight dudes love to tease/mock the “overtly” queer* dudes too, and sometimes do much more. 

This one time, M* and I went to the local market in her area in the evening and she got mauled so badly that he left marks all over her boobs, another classmate even caught the dude who brushed past her, threatened to take him to the police and he laughed and said how she’d just get gangraped (which he would heartily join) and she wouldn’t dare to report just some “casual” grabbing. 

I am not even going to touch upon the harassment Muslim and Dalit people face in my campus — for they are not my stories to tell at will. This doesn’t negate the fact that street harassment needs to be contextualised: who gets harassed, why, what happens when someone who doesn’t fit the bill of “desirable bodies” gets harassed (how such harassment is rationalised etc), how does one’s race/caste/class/gender presentation engender the desire to own, validate and actively mark as other, as desirable etc. 

(Aside: GK, will reply to both your e-mails super soon!)

—-

*I don’t even know what “overtly queer” entails, but this is the description I’ve been told. 

It goes down here as well and now that the weather has warmed up it gives this fools an excuse to be on their worst behavior.

fearandwar:

The Right Wing decided it wanted to play Monday Morning Quarterback with my lady parts this year. It seems like an odd choice for a recreational activity, especially since there’s no legislative or medical reason to suddenly introduce radically restrictive and dangerous legislation on women’s health and bodies. Maybe someone should introduce them to Pinterest instead.

Here are our Top 10 Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Attacks on Women’s Rights (just in the last 6 months!)

1. The Blunt Amendment. Reasonable religious exemptions weren’t enough for Roy Blunt. This amendment would have allowed your employer – not your doctor - to decide what kind of health care you could get based on his or her own personal moral or religious convictions.
2. The All-Male Birth Control Panel, or the Man Panel. Congressman Darrell Issa convened a panel to discuss the coverage of birth control – but refused to include any women.
3. Susan G. Komen Foundation defunds Planned Parenthood. Komen opted to cut off funding to the largest provider of reproductive health services in the US because of their new VP’s objection to a mere 3% of their activities.
4. Rush Limbaugh Calls Sandra Fluke a Prostitute and a Slut. After Sandra Fluke stood up for women everywhere, Rush Limbaugh took to the airwaves and called her a prostitute and a slut for speaking out in favor of birth control coverage. He also said she should have to put videos of her having sex online to compensate the taxpayers who “are going to pay for your contraceptives.” Classy.
5. Forced Trans-Vaginal Ultrasounds. Republican legislators in Virginia invited the commonwealth into the exam room when they proposed a bill that would require women seeking abortions to undergo an invasive, medically-unnecessary vaginal probe before their procedure.
6. Texas defunds Planned Parenthood. Under Governor Rick Perry, the state of Texas banned funding to Planned Parenthood because it provides abortion services. In the end, though, this fight has only served to hurt low-income women looking for breast cancer screenings, birth control and pap smears.
7. Women in the Military Should “Expect” to be Raped. Responding to a 64% increase in the reports of rape and violent sexual assaults in the military, Fox News pundit Liz Trotta responds, “What did they expect?” She goes on to say that there is a bureaucracy of people to support these women who are being “raped too much.”
8. Foster Friess Suggests Women Put Aspirin Between Their Knees. Rick Santorum supporter, Foster Friess, reminisced about back in his day when ladies put aspirin between their knees for birth control. Back in his day, people also died of polio.
9. Santorum wants to deny birth control coverage because he thinks it’s available and affordable. Despite the fact that most forms of birth control still require a prescription and 1 in 3 women have reported struggling to afford birth control. Santorum feels there is no barrier to access, so it shouldn’t be covered by insurance.
10. Mitt Romney doesn’t understand a woman’s reproductive system. Romney has publicly supported “personhood amendments,” which would ban abortion by declaring life begins at conception. When asked about how this affects birth control, Romney seemed to be completely unaware that hormonal forms of birth control stop implantation, not conception and would be banned under any personhood amendment.

And it’s only the middle of March.

(via themindislimitless)

foreverliberal:

Are you seriously going to put all of your energy into stopping two people who love each other from getting married? That isn’t harming anyone. But bullying (and suicide from it) and hate crimes based on opposition against the LGBT community are causing real suffering.

Are you really going to use all of your time to talk about your stance against abortion? The poverty levels in the United States are harming millions of people, many of whom are children, and forcing people to go through unwanted pregnancies will just make it worse. Or how about the many children that are already here and are being abused or neglected, or women’s rights? 

There are many issues like this – issues that people are putting so much time, energy, and money into, and using their voices for, when they could be fighting for causes that are actually important.

Feel free to reblog and add your own examples. 

gaywrites:

It’s not a crime.

How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love Feminists. (via popmuslim)

A woman in America runs a greater risk of being killed by her husband or boyfriend than a woman in Pakistan.

A woman in America runs a greater risk of being killed by her husband or boyfriend than a woman in Pakistan.

A woman in America runs a greater risk of being killed by her husband or boyfriend than a woman in Pakistan.

(via silverqueen)

Let me reiterate that for you all …

A woman in America runs a greater risk of being killed by her husband or boyfriend than a woman in Pakistan.

A woman in America runs a greater risk of being killed by her husband or boyfriend than a woman in Pakistan.

A woman in America runs a greater risk of being killed by her husband or boyfriend than a woman in Pakistan.

(via dank-potion)

I think you’ve missed a crutial point though, let me point it out:

A woman in America runs a greater risk of being killed by her husband or boyfriend than a woman in Pakistan.

A woman in America runs a greater risk of being killed by her husband or boyfriend than a woman in Pakistan.

A woman in America runs a greater risk of being killed by her husband or boyfriend than a woman in Pakistan.

(via themindislimitless)

(via themindislimitless)

themindislimitless:

racismschool:

moatyitsgazza:

yanwonderyan:

moatyitsgazza:

yanwonderyan:

moatyitsgazza:

yanwonderyan:

moatyitsgazza:

yanwonderyan:

moatyitsgazza:

yanwonderyan:

moatyitsgazza:

yanwonderyan:

So usually I love this guys videos and I find him hilarious , I’ve been subscribed for YEARS. But something about this video really bothered me at 1:08 how openly and easily he said “nigger”……….Call me over-sensitive but I just can’t accept that. It makes me wonder just how many other times he’s used that word? Even if he didn’t meant to be offensive…he should understand it’s not a word you throw around. So i commented and THIS GENIUS http://www.youtube.com/user/cirianopolis Decides to reply to my comment by saying : “Shut the fuck up you stupid nigger” 

*Sighs* I mean…..he’s a troll and I’m not shocked but it’s disturbing how open it is , how he can just say NIGGER and we’re told we HAVE to accept it. No. I won’t accept a middle class white kid openly saying “Nigger” it bothers me and I have a right to be bothered by it. I’ve been a Nerimon fan for years BUT this is disappointing. 

oh my god he isn’t racist for quoting a song you total spastic

I don’t give care if he was quoting a song. It is never okay to use that word. How about you research the history behind the word and the hurt it caused and then try and tell me it’s ok to use it.

i know the history behind the word. but it isn’t painful anymore, get a fucking grip.

what’s he gonna do, bleep out the word so overly sensitive pricks don’t cry? nobody cares anymore, racism is dead

honestly the only racist thing about this post is you saying that nicki minaj can say “nigger” but a white person can’t. now go away.

IT ISN’T PAINFUL ANYMORE? RACISM IS DEAD? You are so ignorant it is UNBELIEVABLE.

Oh sorry. I am black and you clearly know more about racism towards black people than I do. Oh silly me. All the racially related incidents that have happened in my life and my family’s and my friends must be imaginary. Let’s rejoice. Racism is dead she says , I’ll be sure to tell my friends that the next time we get looks or comments or we’re followed by the security guard in a shop or a officer stops us for a “routine check”. I could go on you have NO idea what it’s like to be a minority. So shut down that talk. 

I don’t care if you’re black, why does that even matter

If people have bullied you because you’re black, whatever, bit fucking deal, move on with your life

but that doesn’t mean that saying “nigger” is wrong. its origin isn’t actually offensive, it just meant someone from Nigeria. So yeah, I actually do know more about race than you. 

You just got outsmarted by a white girl. Now if I were you, if I didn’t want to get bullied, I’d stop being such a pretentious cunt. Being black does not make you special, or immune to bullying. Stupid girl.

I don’t know what kind of special school you went to if you believe the word means “someone from Nigeria”. How about you read a real book because that isn’t true AT ALL. Who said I got bullied? This is stuff that happens to black and brown people day in day out , and you wouldn’t know a thing about it. Not because I’m a “cunt” but simply because I’M BLACK. GET THAT IN YOUR HEAD.  And if you can’t even accept that racism is real. You are beyond stupid. I feel really sorry for you. I now understand what kind of ignorant , deluded person I’m dealing with. I don’t have a problem with anyone’s race. I have a problem with stupid , deluded , ignorant people like you. Who try to tell me IT’S MY FAULT PEOPLE ARE RACIST? Go read a fucking book. 

THEY AREN’T RACIST YOU MORON, THEY JUST LOOK FOR ANYTHING TO PICK AT. Since you’re so fucking “OH MY GOD LOOK AT ME I’M BLACK” of COURSE they’re gonna pick on that aspect. 

you obviously did get bullied at some point if you’re sitting getting butthurt over a non-serious youtube video about a non-serious rap song, now please go away and run your terrible meme blog away from me thank you

I’m done. It’s hard debating with someone as stupid as you anyway. Do yourself a favour. Read some books.

stop telling me to read books when i’m taking english literature at A level you spastic…

Last I checked Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights don’t tell you about African history , colonialism and racial issues. I did an A level in English and I don’t remember anything in the course being about this topic. Thanks. Now go read books about the history of the world. 

Wow, you really are a narrow minded brat aren’t you? I’ve studied Of Mice and Men, Othello and To Kill a Mockingbird, ALL are novels/plays/novellas which punch racism (real racism, not teenagers having tantrums cause they can’t handle the streets) in the face. I’ve also read Martin Luther King’s book, which you have probably never came across in your entire life. And I own Gone With the Wind, which, if you actually knew anything about racism in America (which you don’t), you’d know that that book revolves around the American civil war, which started because the “Yankees” wanted the blacks to live their own lives without slavery.

You might want to think twice before crossing someone when they actually know more about a subject than you. Just because you’re black doesn’t mean you know the history. And the fact that you have mentioned the fact that you’re black at least 8 times in this argument proves my earlier point, that because you make a massive deal about the colour of your skin, people will poke fun.

Please go away, I am sick to death of you

This is what a RACIST looks like. Never be the person in this comment section. The RACIST piece of GARBAGE that has the nerve to defend and justify their SICK comments in the above replies, is truly so FAR into “Privilege” land that they…you know what, just read the comments. I am confident that even the most over privileged person can see the MANY things wrong with this SICK individual. 

Where people think reading white people books will gave them *OH KNOWLEDGE* over what racism feels.
Yeah, okay.

Seriously. Please, for goodness’s sake, go read. Face your privilege.

ZOMG look, there’s LINKS! ZOMG I’M EDUCATING YOU!! You’re welcome. Now, if you say ignorant racist stuff, you will only have yourself to blame for your ignorance.

Teaching moment: This is an example of how to be a blatant, ignorant racist. Don’t be like this guy.

(Source: jessicavalenti, via thefemmeinistmystique)