~oOo~

2010-10-10

sunday smut: tumblr highlights (no. 5)


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by Sean Flynn @ Flickr.com 
Lots of really, really great stuff this week. I bring you a handful of excerpts I shared at tumblr. For the rest, wander on over to the feminist librarian reads.

Molly @ first the egg | unemployment, class privilege & family-blind expectations.

“Apparently unemployed people are all either single people, or men with wives to take care of the children and home, or independently wealthy. The online unemployment system advises that everyone should treat the job search like a full-time job, carrying on job-seeking for 40 hours each week. Isn’t that adorable? Should I perhaps stick Noah in a crate eight hours a day in order to accomplish that? Because being unemployed meansI can’t afford full-time childcare.”

echidne @ ECHIDNE of the Snakes | Who Stole Feminism? Part I.

“How does one define an 'establishment feminist,' by the way? Do people who write about feminism a lot count or not? Or does the person have to be running a feminist organization to count as one? How long must a person be famous as a feminist to count as part of the establishment? I’m asking because sometimes it is hard to know who these establishment feminists are, given that the whole feminist movement is in tatters and shreds.”

Courtney @ From Austin to A&M | Connecting with female characters in geek television.

[Courtney provides: spoiler warnings for Dr. Who, Torchwood and Supernatural, as well as trigger warnings for imagined violence, slut-shaming and misogyny against women characters]

This tendency to dislike female character reminds me of another ‘being one of the guys’ strategy: I often meet women who tell me proudly, ‘I just don’t get along with women. All of my best friends have been guys.’ These women also often think that this fact actually makes them progressive (because nothing’s more radical than failing to create female-centric relationships!). And most of the women I’ve known who say this are geeks. It’s actually one of the reasons it took so long for me to become friends with geeks, because ‘I don’t get along with women’ is dealbreaker for meAny woman who says this is either a) telling me that I can never expect more than perfunctory friendship with them or b) inviting me to denigrate women as well, as the basis of our friendship. And no thank you.”

Spilt Milk @ Spilt Milk | Bullies = bullies, children =/= sociopaths and other simple equations.

“At two years old, Bean is still developing her capacity for empathy. She doesn’t yet have the cognitive ability to ‘put herself in someone else’s shoes’ or to reason through all of the consequences of her actions. Even so, she shows concern when others are distressed, she shows affection and practices impulse control when she can in order to share and take turns. She actively comforts adults and other children, offering cuddles and sympathy. Just like the other toddlers and preschoolers and school-aged children that I know do. They are not adults and don’t (can’t) think and behave exactly like adults. But that doesn’t make them sociopathic.

. . . you can’t call for more vigilance, transparency and action against young bullies without also calling for more respect for young people. It is precisely because adults feel safe and justified in expressing anti-child sentiments like “[children are] basically sociopathic” – that is, precisely because children are marginalised in our culture – that bullying is allowed to flourish in institutions like schools. If you don’t feel that children deserve the same respect as any other group of humans (and I would argue that whacking a negative label on them, using sarcastic jibes about their behaviour and showing hostility towards those that would defend them is, um, disrespectful) then how can you argue that their pain matters and that their voices should be heard? The very same people who call being bullied ‘character building’ are the people who wish to maintain the status quo, a situation where children are not well protected.”


For all the rest of the week's links, head on over to the feminist librarian reads.

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