à la gales, “a hill I will die on”

shuddertree:

missvoltairine:

galesofnovember:

opendrawer:

I am really unwavering about the fact that there is a huge fucking difference between productive “self-care” that leads to positive progression and self-actualization and a better life, and vaguely self-destructive coping methods to preserve and meet short-term needs. Like, I’ll take lorazepam and sleep all day so I don’t kill myself, or I’ll completely (like, not based-in-reality completely) isolate myself from my interests and hobbies so that I don’t have to see people whose presence gives me panic attacks, but in no world would any critical-thinking person call isolation and sleeping all day “self-care.” Like, there’s a difference, okay, and it’s not ableist to say that, and that doesn’t mean that those unhealthy coping methods aren’t important at the time that they’re used, because yeah, survival mechanisms are pretty fucking important. No one is telling you not to do that shit if you’re really bent on doing that shit. But it’s pretty disingenuous and semi-dangerous to believe that (for example) not leaving my abusive partner “for reasons” (ie. coping) and leaving my abusive partner for the betterment of my life (ie. self-care) are synonymous¹, and it took me four years of being the most annoying, emotionally-stunted person in the world to finally realize that it’s not ableist to be fed up with wallowing in self-pity and stagnation, or god forbid, even talk about being fed up with wallowing in self-pity and stagnation.

Bless this post.  

I am so over the idea that every coping mechanism is okay.  Lots of stuff that helps you take your mind off your problems or feel better is really, really harmful.  All things that are genuinely helpful and genuinely self-care are HARD. 

Bolding mine.

YES, YES, @verbalprivilege - staying on top of our shit is real self-care

exactly. beautifully worded.

Actual Forms of “Self Care:”

forwhenifeellikesharing:

Exercising regularly, paying your bills on time, staying informed, cultivating meaningful friendships, brushing and flossing regularly, having healthy adult relationships with your parents (and siblings) in whatever capacity you can, reading more, setting short- and long-term goals, working towards short- and long-term goals, going to sleep instead of passing out, owning your bullshit, sitting with good posture, not taking everything personally, letting things go, eating well, expressing your feelings like an adult, becoming aware of your self-destructive behaviors, doing things you enjoy that aren’t self-destructive behaviors, limiting self-pity, apologizing when necessary, drinking enough water, realizing anger and resentment are not sustainable forms of life-fuel, being self-critical while not self-shredding, responding to criticism with informed opinions or not responding at all, and most importantly: being “present” without delusions of what it means to be “present.”

really, really good list.

(via shuddertree)

pervertsofcolor:

putawh0re:

Fuck off.

Pervert Power, motherfucker.

bad-dominicana:

cynique:

What’s that, article?

http://digitalcommons.wcl.american.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1234&context=jgspl

You say Iranian women are forced into submission by oppressive Muslim rule? You hold an Orientalist view that Middle Eastern women are forced to live in the home, being oppressed by wearing the veil/hijab/burka while churning out babies and being beaten by their husbands or honor killed by their male family?

I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you over our massive Iranian female police force armed with sub-machine guns, scaling walls, wielding swords, and shooting out of car windows. 

oh my god

they’re all badasses

/RESPECT

yuuussssssssssss

(Source: wahnwitzig, via bankuei)

"Most books and articles about alcohol abuse by queer people frame alcoholism as an individual disease, with no analysis of how the overall structure of queer life makes drinking seem like a necessary part of life for so many of us. Defining alcoholism as an illness of individuals prevents us from accurately diagnosing the illness of intoxication culture that plagues us collectively.

Alcohol abuse is neither a moral failure nor an individual pathology; it’s a response to a collective reality of oppression and the lack of social alternatives for challenging or coping with that reality. What we need are empowering models that understand addiction as a response to an oppressive society and locate the sickness in that society, not in ourselves.

My Edge is Anything But Straight by Nick Riotfag (via combat—wombat)

(via gadsen)

"

Here is the thing, okay? Coming into a feminist conversation with, “Have you considered that sometimes women acquire free drinks at bars?” is like walking into graduate school during Philosophy finals and saying, “Have you considered that the color blue that I see may not be the color blue that you see?”

Imagine you are the guy who just walked into that Philosophy class and laid that shit down. Imagine the class full of students who have worked very hard and committed themselves and sacrificed to be here, students who have spent several years of their lives learning about this subject. Imagine now their feelings when you go to the head of the classroom with a smirk on your face and demand the professor give you an A for effort. Imagine now that they think you are a douchebag asshole, because they do, and because you are. You are a douchebag asshole because you are obviously so self-centered, arrogant, and completely ignorant of the world around you, that you thought you could walk into a high-level course with no background and no work and say something profoundly simplistic and totally unrelated and also everybody should congratulate you for having done this thing, so brave, so provocative.
[….]
You are not asking us a real question. You are simply illustrating, for all to see, your own ignorance. You are saying, “I have not considered the implications of the question I have just asked. I have not taken the time nor effort nor commitment to sit down and ask myself this question. Instead, I have come into your philosophy classroom/office/feminist blog and shat out my question with a smirk, because I believe that my two seconds of thought are worth more than your long-term analysis, because I believe I am worth more.”

Fugivitus: A few things to consider when you find a feminist blog (via absolutely-spiffing)

ugh. so much this.

(via charthebutcher)

notes- this is a work in progress, but after I wrote it on the MegaBus from Philly to Toronto on day 6 of the Revolution Starts At Home kickoff tour and it got 76 comments on Facebook, I thought I might be on to something. I’m posting it here- if you like it and care to kick down a couple bucks for the pleasure and utility of reading it, feel free to paypal me at brownstargirl at gmail. this may well go into a little zine or booklet- watch this space.

more notes: this piece is written from the perspective of a chronically ill girl who grew up working/lower middle class, has been to college and MFA school on a lot of financial aid, and has in her adult life been poor, working class and somewhat more stable, whose income is precarious due to illness, familial estrangement and other things- like, you know, the economy. i recognize that I’m writing from this position, and if you grew up poor and/or have always been poor, some things in this list may work, some skills and strategies and resources and realities are likely to be very different. I feel like most of this will apply to folks who have some mix of economic brokeness and access, who are trying to make it work. I’m open to hearing folks’ feedback and ideas. 

if you share this, please credit me and this website and include this headnote.

Thank you!
- Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, brownstargirl.org

shuddertree:

lauraisabel:

This is so helpful! Please share!

here’s a link to an online copy of this guide, written by iliana perez.

(Source: radicalsocialworker, via jchowski)

on femme/hard femme

fuckyeahhardfemme:

i’ve been getting a lot of asks recently about what my definitions of “femme” and “hard femme” are, so i’m gonna try and answer ya’ll the best i can in one post instead of a million asks.

femme is a many-headed, many-tittied, many-armed beast that knows no bounds.
for me, femme is about reclaiming our identities from a society that has sought to tell us what to do and who we are and can be for centuries.  femme is femininity and masculinity reimagined, deconstructed and recreated.  femme is on purpose.  femme defies, questions, and shatters the structures and institutions that tell us how we’re supposed to identify.  i am femme because i choose to be, because it is what feels right and solid for me - not because society says “female = feminine.”  i am femme because i like how i look this way, not because anyone else does.  femme is our own interpretation and application of what we’ve been taught, what we’ve had to figure out ourselves, what we’ve never been told, what the world throws at us.  femme is self care.  femme is strength.  femme is a rejection of prescribed gender roles and an embrace of individual gender identity.  femme fucks with gender.  femme is intelligent, clever, and creative.  femme shits on the patriarchy and tells it to clean up the mess its damn self.
femme is where i found my way back to after years of rejecting anything remotely “feminine” because of internalized misogyny, because of an abusive relationship in my past, because of how i am treated differently by strangers depending on my level of overt femininity. 

hard femme is how i knew i’d found my home.

i’d say hard femme is femme’s iron-pumpin, boot-wearin, always sneerin cousin.  hard femme is tough, diy, takin care of business, down n dirty and no-bullshit.  hard femme draws elements from both traditionally masculine and feminine traits and creates an intimidating, hard edged, boundless identity that a lot of folks find they’ve identified with for a long time without ever having a name for it.  hard femme talks shit on The Man purely by existing.  hard femme is studs, boots, leather, glitter, and a big ass middle finger.

here’s the thing though, and this is important: femme and hard femme are whatever the fuck they mean to you.  yes they are outlined, existing identities, but their power lies in the freely chosen identity of those who embrace them and their potential for never ending growth and mutation.

i’m sure i’ll come back to this later with a list of shit i forgot to include, but i hope this works for those of ya’ll who’ve been asking.

<3
lj

Some online resources on communication, support, relationships, and accountability

culturetrust:

Non Violent Communication Zine

Infinite Relationships; Relationships without Bounds or Boundaries, love without limits or ends

We are All Survivors We are all Perpetrators; What to do when someone tells you that you violated their boundaries, made them feel uncomfortable, or committed assault

Making Peace With Jealousy in Polyamorous Relationships

Learning Good Consent

The Basics of Non Violent Communication

Supporting Survivors Fact Sheet

Relationship Help; Tips for Building Relationships that Last

For A Safer World:a guide to local groups, online resources, zines, books and films on trauma, survivor support, communication, mental health, community accountability, anti-sexism, addiction, and conflict mediation.

Building Self Esteem: A Self Help Guide

The Power of Silent Empathy: How to break down barriers to connection when words don’t work

Healthy Relationships

Survivor Support Booklet

Support Zine

"Poverty is not simply having no money — it is isolation, vulnerability, humiliation and mistrust. It is not being able to differentiate between employers and exploiters and abusers. It is contempt for the simplistic illusion of meritocracy — the idea that what we get is what we work for. It is knowing that your mother, with her arthritic joints and her maddening insomnia and her post-traumatic stress disordered heart, goes to work until two in the morning waiting tables for less than minimum wage, or pushes a janitor’s cart and cleans the shit-filled toilets of polished professionals. It is entering a room full of people and seeing not only individual people, but violent systems and stark divisions. It is the violence of untreated mental illness exacerbated by the fact that reality, from some vantage points, really does resemble a psychotic nightmare. It is the violence of abuse and assault which is ignored or minimized by police officers, social services, and courts of law. Poverty is conflict. And for poor kids lucky enough to have the chance to “move up,” it is the conflict between remaining oppressed or collaborating with the oppressor."

Megan Lee (via sociolab)

(Source: docs.google.com, via repetition-is-holy)

omg I fucking love hyperbole and a half

(Source: thenailasaurus.com, via fuckyeahhardfemme)

"When, as happened recently in France, an attempt is made to coerce women out of the burqa rather than creating a situation in which a woman can choose what she wishes to do, it’s not about liberating her, but about unclothing her. It becomes an act of humiliation and cultural imperialism. It’s not about the burqa. It’s about the coercion. Coercing a woman out of a burqa is as bad as coercing her into one. Viewing gender in this way, shorn of social, political and economic context, makes it an issue of identity, a battle of props and costumes. It is what allowed the US government to use western feminist groups as moral cover when it invaded Afghanistan in 2001. Afghan women were (and are) in terrible trouble under the Taliban. But dropping daisy-cutters on them was not going to solve their problems."

Arundhati Roy (via jahanzebjz)

(via zuky)

iaquariuschicken:

jvtactics:

Jason Lee photographs his daughters pt.1.

Okay, these are the cutest.

"

Reconstructing the trauma story also includes a systematic review of the meaning of the event, both to the patient and to the important people in her life. The traumatic event challenges an ordinary person to become a theologian, a philosopher, and a jurist. The survivor is called upon to articulate the values and beliefs that she once held and that the trauma destroyed. She stands mute before the emptiness of evil, feeling the insufficiency of any known system of explanation. Survivors of atrocity of every age and every culture come to a point in their testimony where all questions are reduced to one, spoken more in bewilderment than outrage: why? The answer is beyond human understanding.

Beyond this unfathomable question, the survivor confronts another, equally incomprehensible question: Why me? The arbitrary, random quality of her fate defies the basic human faith in a just or even predictable world order. In order to develop a full understanding of the trauma story, the survivor must examine the moral questions of guilt and responsibility and reconstruct a system of belief that makes sense of her undeserved suffering. Finally, the survivor cannot reconstruct a sense of meaning by the exercise of thought alone. The remedy for injustice also requires action. The survivor must decide what is to be done.

As the survivor attempts to resolve these questions, she often comes into conflict with important people in her life. There is a rupture in her sense of belonging within a shared system of belief. Thus she faces a double task: not only must she rebuild her own “shattered assumptions” about meaning, order, and justice in the world but she must also find a way to resolve her differences with those whose beliefs she can no longer share. Not only must she restore her own sense of worth but she must also be prepared to sustain it in the face of the critical judgments of others.

Judith Herman’s Trauma and Recovery, p. 178. (via leonineantiheroine)

(via jchowski)