Thursday, September 30, 2010
Monday, September 27, 2010
from Tucker Max (no, seriously, I'm shocked too)
Ladies, let me give you some advice. You can throw all your stupid fucking chick-lit, self-help, why-doesn’t-he-love-me books out, because this is all you need to know: Men will treat you the way you let them. There is no such thing as “deserving” respect; you get what you demand from people. Let a guy fuck you in the ass, come on your back, drink all your beer and then leave, and he’ll do it. But if you demand respect, he will either respect you or he won’t associate with you. It really is that simple.
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
from the NYTimes.com
That led to their reworking of Mr. Dodson’s rant as “The Bed Intruder Song,” which has now been seen more than 10 million times on YouTube and reached No. 3 on the iTunes R&B chart.
from a fortune cookie fortune I found on the floor of Lawrence terrace level
Our first and last love is...self-love.
Sent from my iPhone
Sunday, September 19, 2010
from my DDD sister Symone Jackson, concerning original sin
Yeah but I don't have it cause I was...what's it called, cesarean
section.
section.
Sent from my iPhone
Friday, September 17, 2010
from Robert Heinlein
Progress isn't made by early risers. It's made by lazy men trying to find easier ways to do something.
Sent from my iPhone
Sent from my iPhone
Friday, September 10, 2010
from my DDD sister Symone Jackson, concerning people who need to hurry up
Unless you're in the bathroom. Don't push too hard!
Sent from my iPhone
Thursday, September 9, 2010
from yet another hateful, intolerant commenter on CNN.com
That's a threat! That's a threat in the usual Muslim way. They have no decency! If they did, they would move the center to another part of town. But no, we are now being threatened!
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
from the comment I want to leave on my last entry concerning the OUP blog, which is too long to post as a comment
I'm angry about gender inequality.
Actually I'm angry about all inequality, and for some reason I picked tonight to feel this anger so acutely. It all started, more or less, when I read an article this afternoon posted on one of my favorite blogs, which mostly focuses on what I like to call "non-news": celebrity gossip, relationship advice, fashion articles, and periodic real news updates on "women's issues" around the world. The blog has a definitive left lean and tends to cater towards an educated audience of working women and college students, and usually their rants against paycheck inequality or pro-lifers or objectification of women in advertisement provide me with some nourishing food for thought. Today, however, they posted an article entitled "20 Things Men Don't Know About Women," or something along those lines. I'm fairly certain the article was meant to be taken lightheartedly, but I found it so offensive and it made me so angry that hours later, I still haven't recovered from seeing red.
My issue with the article--other than the fact that the author was making gross generalizations about women, and the vast majority of items on the list did not even remotely apply to me (the first was about how much women enjoy peeing outside and in the shower. Um. No. Pretty sure I haven't done that since I was potty trained)--was that about half the things on the list involved the objectification of women in one way or another. For example, the author claims that one thing men don't know about women is that we all enjoy catcalls from construction workers, as long as they aren't too lewd. Another claim was that all women secretly want their guy friends to lust after them, so we deliberately dress up so that they'll want to sleep with us even though we don't want to sleep with them. Yet another was that all women hate waxing body hair, really, really, utterly hate it, but do it anyway so that guys will go down on them. Her bottom line, perhaps without intending it to be, was that women actually like to be objectified.
Catcalls aren't innocent, even when they aren't lewd--they're disrespectful, and designed to remind a woman of "her place." They aren't compliments, even if taken out of context they might sound like they are. A construction worker--even a female construction worker--would never whistle or yell at a man in the same way he would a woman, and for that and that alone, it's not okay. I put up with more catcalls than I can even count when I was in Morocco, and let me tell you, they were not flattering, they were not intended to flatter me, and I did not enjoy them in the least. They made me feel intimidated and nervous when I walked by a group of men, and I spent so much time wishing I were invisible so that strange men would leave me allow that I finally called it quits and left the country three weeks early...which was likely exactly the thing they wanted me to do. A catcall is intended to relegate a woman to the same position in a man's mind as a mostly-naked pin-up girl in a motorcycle calendar: an object to be drooled over and fantasized about, not a human being who would, at least in my case, be much more likely to confront a catcaller and give him a piece of my mind than to sleep with him.
As for the notion that all women want our guy friends to want to sleep with us even when we don't want to sleep with them, well, there's a very thin line between that and the fundamentalist notion that all women are hedonists who exist solely to tempt men into sin with our sexuality. The author of this article was implying that, yes, women do have a secret agenda and are trying to lure men into lust, that we're incapable of conducting a platonic relationship with a man without ulterior motives. Personally, I want my friends--male or female--to treat me as a human being, not a sex object; how on earth is dressing myself up and trying to subliminally hint that they should sleep with me working toward accomplishing that goal in any way? Not to mention the fact that the author is betraying a very low sense of self-esteem and self-respect on her part, and then imparting that same lack of confidence onto all women: it's not enough for a man to like you as a friend and enjoy your company and conversation; he should want to sleep with you, too.
And finally, the issue of the waxing. Having grown up in the Midwest with a prohibitionist prude for a mother, I'm somewhat uncomfortable discussing the details of genital grooming, so I'll treat this one in more general terms. The decisions you make about your body--hairstyles, clothing, even what you put into it--you should make for yourself, not for your friends, or your boyfriend, and certainly not because you want sex. I would never dream of changing my appearance by, say, getting a different haircut, because some guy wanted me to. Ultimately, the only one who has to be happy with my appearance is me, so why would I--as the author of the article claims--be willing to do something I really, truly hate, for the sake of someone else? To bring it back to precise terms, if a woman really hates getting Brazilians, then she should damn well stop getting Brazilians and instead just find a sexual partner who doesn't mind a bit of hair. Why on earth would you cost yourself time, money, and pain for something you don't even want to do? Because you're a woman, that's why--according to this author, anyway.
You know what makes me the most angry, though? Even more than ignorant articles like this that are posing as humor, even more than the fact that people think it's okay to write degrading and objectifying things in the name of humor, it's the fact that if I were to point out to someone how unprogressive and anti-feminist this article is, they'd berate me for being too PC and taking a humorous article too seriously. I'm angry about gender inequality, and articles like this--just as much as people like Sharron Angle--are upholding that very inequality, whether they intend to or not. But by expressing my anger, I suddenly am labeled a radical. It's okay to want equality, but when I express anger at the continued marginalization, objectification, and lack of equality that so many people face, or when--heaven forbid--I try to speak out and stop those things, somehow that makes me irrational. So yeah, I'm angry about gender inequality, but I'm even more angry at being told I have no reason to be.
Actually I'm angry about all inequality, and for some reason I picked tonight to feel this anger so acutely. It all started, more or less, when I read an article this afternoon posted on one of my favorite blogs, which mostly focuses on what I like to call "non-news": celebrity gossip, relationship advice, fashion articles, and periodic real news updates on "women's issues" around the world. The blog has a definitive left lean and tends to cater towards an educated audience of working women and college students, and usually their rants against paycheck inequality or pro-lifers or objectification of women in advertisement provide me with some nourishing food for thought. Today, however, they posted an article entitled "20 Things Men Don't Know About Women," or something along those lines. I'm fairly certain the article was meant to be taken lightheartedly, but I found it so offensive and it made me so angry that hours later, I still haven't recovered from seeing red.
My issue with the article--other than the fact that the author was making gross generalizations about women, and the vast majority of items on the list did not even remotely apply to me (the first was about how much women enjoy peeing outside and in the shower. Um. No. Pretty sure I haven't done that since I was potty trained)--was that about half the things on the list involved the objectification of women in one way or another. For example, the author claims that one thing men don't know about women is that we all enjoy catcalls from construction workers, as long as they aren't too lewd. Another claim was that all women secretly want their guy friends to lust after them, so we deliberately dress up so that they'll want to sleep with us even though we don't want to sleep with them. Yet another was that all women hate waxing body hair, really, really, utterly hate it, but do it anyway so that guys will go down on them. Her bottom line, perhaps without intending it to be, was that women actually like to be objectified.
Catcalls aren't innocent, even when they aren't lewd--they're disrespectful, and designed to remind a woman of "her place." They aren't compliments, even if taken out of context they might sound like they are. A construction worker--even a female construction worker--would never whistle or yell at a man in the same way he would a woman, and for that and that alone, it's not okay. I put up with more catcalls than I can even count when I was in Morocco, and let me tell you, they were not flattering, they were not intended to flatter me, and I did not enjoy them in the least. They made me feel intimidated and nervous when I walked by a group of men, and I spent so much time wishing I were invisible so that strange men would leave me allow that I finally called it quits and left the country three weeks early...which was likely exactly the thing they wanted me to do. A catcall is intended to relegate a woman to the same position in a man's mind as a mostly-naked pin-up girl in a motorcycle calendar: an object to be drooled over and fantasized about, not a human being who would, at least in my case, be much more likely to confront a catcaller and give him a piece of my mind than to sleep with him.
As for the notion that all women want our guy friends to want to sleep with us even when we don't want to sleep with them, well, there's a very thin line between that and the fundamentalist notion that all women are hedonists who exist solely to tempt men into sin with our sexuality. The author of this article was implying that, yes, women do have a secret agenda and are trying to lure men into lust, that we're incapable of conducting a platonic relationship with a man without ulterior motives. Personally, I want my friends--male or female--to treat me as a human being, not a sex object; how on earth is dressing myself up and trying to subliminally hint that they should sleep with me working toward accomplishing that goal in any way? Not to mention the fact that the author is betraying a very low sense of self-esteem and self-respect on her part, and then imparting that same lack of confidence onto all women: it's not enough for a man to like you as a friend and enjoy your company and conversation; he should want to sleep with you, too.
And finally, the issue of the waxing. Having grown up in the Midwest with a prohibitionist prude for a mother, I'm somewhat uncomfortable discussing the details of genital grooming, so I'll treat this one in more general terms. The decisions you make about your body--hairstyles, clothing, even what you put into it--you should make for yourself, not for your friends, or your boyfriend, and certainly not because you want sex. I would never dream of changing my appearance by, say, getting a different haircut, because some guy wanted me to. Ultimately, the only one who has to be happy with my appearance is me, so why would I--as the author of the article claims--be willing to do something I really, truly hate, for the sake of someone else? To bring it back to precise terms, if a woman really hates getting Brazilians, then she should damn well stop getting Brazilians and instead just find a sexual partner who doesn't mind a bit of hair. Why on earth would you cost yourself time, money, and pain for something you don't even want to do? Because you're a woman, that's why--according to this author, anyway.
You know what makes me the most angry, though? Even more than ignorant articles like this that are posing as humor, even more than the fact that people think it's okay to write degrading and objectifying things in the name of humor, it's the fact that if I were to point out to someone how unprogressive and anti-feminist this article is, they'd berate me for being too PC and taking a humorous article too seriously. I'm angry about gender inequality, and articles like this--just as much as people like Sharron Angle--are upholding that very inequality, whether they intend to or not. But by expressing my anger, I suddenly am labeled a radical. It's okay to want equality, but when I express anger at the continued marginalization, objectification, and lack of equality that so many people face, or when--heaven forbid--I try to speak out and stop those things, somehow that makes me irrational. So yeah, I'm angry about gender inequality, but I'm even more angry at being told I have no reason to be.
from "The Gender-Neutral Pronoun: 150 Years Later, Still an Epic Fail" on the Oxford University Press blog
And in 1897 a Charleston, South Carolina, newspaper reports on a Massachusetts law that forbids certain kinds of feathers to be worn in hats, a law presumably aimed at women but which employs a masculine pronoun. This presents a problem for the Boston police commissioner, who insists that the masculine pronoun does not include the feminine: “I don’t believe I could arrest a woman on that law,” he said. “The masculine pronoun does not specifically include the women. The law including both usually says ‘person’ or ‘persons,’ but this one simply says ‘his.’”
from The Destruction of Da Derga's Hostel
I will inquire of wise men that I myself may be wise.
Sent from my iPhone
Monday, September 6, 2010
Sunday, September 5, 2010
Saturday, September 4, 2010
from John F Kennedy via Time magazine
...Not what kind of church I believe in, for that should be important
only to me--but what kind of America I believe in...While this year it
may be a Catholic against whom the finger of suspicion is pointed, in
other years it has been--and may someday be again--a Jew or a Quaker
or a Unitarian or a Baptist...Today I may be the victim, but tomorrow
it may be you--until the whole fabric of our harmonious society is
ripped.
only to me--but what kind of America I believe in...While this year it
may be a Catholic against whom the finger of suspicion is pointed, in
other years it has been--and may someday be again--a Jew or a Quaker
or a Unitarian or a Baptist...Today I may be the victim, but tomorrow
it may be you--until the whole fabric of our harmonious society is
ripped.
Sent from my iPhone
from Stanley Fish on the NYT Opinionator blog, via Time magazine
If the bad act is committed by a member of a group you wish to
demonize, attribute it to a community or a religion and not to the
individual. But if the bad act is committed by someone whose profile,
interests and agenda are uncomfortably close to your own, detach the
malefactor from everything that is going on...and characterize him as
a one-off, nongeneralizable, sui generis phenomenon.
demonize, attribute it to a community or a religion and not to the
individual. But if the bad act is committed by someone whose profile,
interests and agenda are uncomfortably close to your own, detach the
malefactor from everything that is going on...and characterize him as
a one-off, nongeneralizable, sui generis phenomenon.
Sent from my iPhone
Friday, September 3, 2010
from a comment left on CNN.com
I only seen four of five Afro-American there no more than five hundred in the country! there are three hundred million of us American. Sad but true.
from a true story
Emma Watson, who played Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter movies, goes to Brown. Recently she was in class and the professor asked a question; Miss Watson evidently gave an exceptionally good answer. A kid in the back of the class then raised his hand, and when the professor called on him, he declared, "TEN POINTS FOR GRYFFINDOR!"
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