Inactivity

I am sorry that I have been slacking the past couple days on this blog. Sunday was Father's Day, Monday I was packing for vacation, and right now I am just burnt out. I was in the middle of making a post about how majority America such as straight people, white people, cis people, and men are completely oblivious to a lot of minority issues, and I just found myself rolling my eyes. I was trying to be polite and level headed explaining how people say that LGBT people already have representation and whatnot and while I was in the process of explaining how wrong that is my tone changed. Mid sentence I found myself going from an informative explanation to suddenly talking about how ignorant and homophobic these remarks are and how fed up I am with hearing them. The level of awareness that I have developed for the people around me has become infuriating. I am stressed out about all these things around my house that I can't sit down and be logical when talking about these racist, sexist, homophobic people who I often address with these posts. Society has me exhausted and drained. So I need to get through my summer holiday with at least some degree of sanity. I will be back after that. Sometime early to mid July I will be back to posting regularly. Deeply sorry, I am simply busy and people are awful. 

I'm For Me

We've all heard it ladies, men's often times harsh and unnecessary opinions of what we wear. I've heard that wearing too much makeup is lying to men, I've heard so many unwanted opinions from men about my hair, my clothes, or my makeup I could scream. It has happened all through school and even now. I get all dressed and ready to go to school or go out wherever I am headed and ether once I get where I'm going or often times before I even make it out the door, I start hearing about it. There is something wrong somewhere. "You messed up your hair," when it's purposefully disheveled. "Why is that shaped that way?" If something is asymmetrical. "That doesn't match," if I wear anything other than denim and a plain shirt or a black or white shirt with whatever pants. "You're just going to school/the mall/a cookout/whatever casual situation, isn't that a bit much?" In regards to anything with personality at all, even as small as a piece of jewelry or accessory. And I know we have all seen those really stupid articles about trends that men hate, like we care.

Now, imagine with me a world in which women dress for themselves. In which when we get ourselves done up, we do it so we feel confident and powerful. A world where confidence is our best trait and we want to wear it everywhere so we make ourselves look the way we think makes us attractive. What if a woman wanted someone in her life who accepted her as she is and thought she was most beautiful when she was happy and feeling good about herself? Can you picture it? I hope so, because that is reality my friend

I do my hair and makeup and change my outfit three times in the morning whether I am going to see my husband at all that day or not, so therefore I'm not dressing for him. I am married, so I'm not dressing for anyone else. I am dressing for me. I love feeling confident. I love when I can go out and be myself. I sing, I dance, I talk a lot, I'm loud, I love myself and I am a strong and outgoing woman. Or at least, I am when I feel good about myself. So when I get ready, I make myself feel awesome so I can be myself authentically. So what kick do you get out of making me feel bad? What sick thrill is that for you? Additionally, guys, I just took forever to get ready and you are waiting on me so we can go, right? Okay I'm done, time to go, finally! But, I'm wearing a peplum and you think that looks like maternity wear, and you think you need to tell me that before we leave. Well congratulations now I feel insecure in my favorite outfit and I need to change now because wherever we go I am going to feel eyes on me when their aren't any and I'm not going to be fabulous. So now I need to change and I hope you have a book to read because you're going to be waiting another thirty minutes while I get changed.

Once more let me say this, unless I ask you what you think of my outfit, I literally was not looking for your approval. Guys, not everything a woman does revolves around you. You're not this supreme ultimate force. I don't care if you like it or not I just want to feel good, so let me. This has been a very important PSA.

Rape Culture

I often hear the argument that we don't live in a rape culture because that would imply rape was socially acceptable and legal, which it isn't. And their right, it isn't legal. However do you understand how easy it is to get away with rape? Or how hard it is to tell anyone because of what they will say? There are many different ways in which rape culture is very alive in western societies, so I' going to break them down.

Victim Blaming and Slut Shaming

It's 2015 and we still ask what the victim was wearing or see a girl in a short skirt or showing cleavage and say she's "asking for it". We still call a girl "easy" if she is comfortable with her sexuality. We still think her sexual history, outfit, dancing, or how much she had to drink, is an invitation. No-one "asks" to be raped. Stop trying to find a way to make the victim feel like she did something wrong, she didn't. The only person at fault in a rape case is the rapist, and he raped her because he is a rapist, not because of anything she had done. My body is my body and I can dress it or do with it whatever I want and it is never an invitation to touch me.

Body Shaming

If a girl is plus sized or you personally don't find her attractive, she will hear that she couldn't have been raped or sexually assaulted. No-one would ever want her so of course she is lying. Honestly how dare you because not only is every single woman beautiful, sexual assault can happen to anyone, regardless of anything else. Because once again, a rapist rapes because they are a rapist, not because of anything else.

Complimenting

A lot of girls who are sexually assaulted, when turning to a friend, hear someone trying to look on the bright side. "At least you know you looked good". There is no "bright side" to sexual assault. He didn't sexually assault her because she looked good, he sexually assaulted her because he is a rapist. See a pattern?

Cat-Calling

It is entirely too common, especially in bigger cities, for a girl to be walking down the street minding her own business, and a man who is walking or driving by will shout something vulgar and obscene at her, honk a horn as he drives back yelling some odd noise out the window, or approach her in a sexual manner. And do people say or so anything about this? No, not really. This is viewed as harmless, and in itself it is somewhat harmless. It is still harassment and still effects women in a negative way, but they aren't physically touching her, right? Wrong. That man feels entitled to her body. Thinks she is a decoration. Is essentially viewing her as less than human, and promoting rape culture.

Rape Jokes
This doesn't even need explained, but sadly there are still people who think they are funny.

Men

I have heard so many people say "men can't get raped". And while men are raped less often, it still happens. And while women are the perpetrators less often, it happens. When a young boy is raped by his teacher or when any male is raped by a female, he is told that boys don't get raped. He is told he is lucky. Vulgar comments show up online to the effect of "she can 'rape' me any day". He is called gay if he wasn't in to it.

Anyone can be a victim of rape.

Anyone can be a rapist.

Stop promoting rape culture.

Who Need's Feminism?

I was scrolling through a tumblr blog dedicated to women who have typically snarky things about feminism. I'm not here to demonize those women, but it got me thinking again about anti-feminist women. You have a right to feel the way you do and speak your mind, but you have to consider that your experiences are not everyone's experiences. You may say you don't need feminism because you have never experienced adversity, but someone else may say they need it because of things that happened to them. Feminism isn't selfish. I'm not a feminist for me, I'm a feminist for every woman who has faced gender based inequality. I went to a different tumblr account, whoneedsfeminsm.tumblr.com to show you guys some of the women that make us feminists.

Male Privilege

My husband sent me this in a text message a couple days ago and I'm not sure whether he meant it seriously or just to push my buttons because he knows I'm an ultra feminist. Regardless though that then sparked me making a large rebuttal to the post and I want to go ahead and make a point about it because I am sick and tired of seeing this image and similar ones used in arguments.

"Male privilege" makes no sense to me because there are facets of life in which men are the privileged but there are ones in which women are the privileged. I don't like being upset with an entire gender because of one or the other being "privileged". The problem with images and posts like the one above is that whoever it is that is trying to prove they have it worse cherry picks their issues while ignoring anyone else's societal problems. And in most cases, the content of the image doesn't actually hold any merit.

#WomenAgainstFeminism

When I originally started writing up this post I had a bunch of examples of celebrities who had turned away the title "feminist" for one reason or another, but last night in the middle of the night I was scrolling through my Facebook and a girl I went to high school with posted something that I think makes a better example of why many women don't want to take on the title of "feminist". So I am going to go ahead and show you that post and explain it to you guys. I cut off her name because the purpose here is in no way to throw her under the bus but simply to show you all something I think is important.

Anita Sarkeesian; A Cancer to Both the Feminist and the Gaming Community

As I mentioned in last nights blog entry, I think she is awful, and I have intentions to do several more blogs posts pertaining to some of her ignorant inaccuracies of her video series on YouTube about video games. So here is a more detailed explanation of why I think she is so terrible.

Let’s start with why I think Anita Sarkeesian is a thief. What follows is a screen cap from her KickStarter page showing what her monetary goal is vs. what she actually received from you lovely people and your donations.

Okay so she raised 26.487 times the amount she asked for. Good for her, awesome. Now lets look at another screen cap of her page explaining what the goals were. You will see 4 different groupings stating if this goal is reached, those are the achievements that will be made. You will also see that all of them are listed as “achieved” as she raised such an unreal amount of money.

Women of Borderlands

The video game industry gets a lot of hate being called sexist, especially since Anita Sarkeesian came to public attention with her Youtube series, "Tropes vs. Women in Gaming". Now this woman is a cancer to both the gaming and the feminist community, but this is once again something we will address later. For now I want to go a more positive route. Here are some of the glorious strong women cast in the borderlands series. All of these characters are either playable, get significant screen time, or are otherwise extremely relevant and important women at some point in the series as something other than a damsel in distress role.

Caitlyn Jenner's Beauty and our Transmisogynistic Society

This is the Vanity Fair cover we all have seen for the issue in which Caitlyn introduced who she really was. This image is the moment the world knew Caitlyn for the first time. What I aim to address here is a few things but most specifically, this will all be centered around one nagging comment we here over and over again about Caitlyn Jenner, about Laverne Cox, and about almost all trans women.

"Wow! She looks better than me!"

Many girls have said this. I know I have said it about both Laverne Cox as well as several trans models. When it's said, it isn't meant to be harmful, it comes from a good, but uneducated place. Now that I have been made aware of why it is so problematic, I don't say it anymore. So similarly to what I said in my post, "Phobias and Isms in Disguise", sometimes when people say harmful things they just need to be taught why it was offensive.

"You Look So Much Better Without Makeup!"

    Full face makeup

"Why do yo wear so much makeup? You look so much better without it!"

    Natural makeup

"See?! You're so pretty, you don't need to wear any of that junk."

    No makeup

"Are you feeling okay? You look sick!"

Some things you all need to know:

1. How much a woman wears is her business, and hers alone.
2. When you say "you look better without makeup", it isn't a compliment. You are now insulting the art that she spent so much time creating.
3. When you say "you look better without makeup", you have probably never seen her without makeup.
4. You can compliment a woman without having anything to do with her makeup.
5. You can compliment a woman without having anything to do with her appearance

This has been a PSA.