caring is not an advantage.
Italian by birth, Los Angelino by choice. 28. Writer, atheist, cook and occasional baker. Consumer of all things Marvel.
Fashion is a Feminist Issue: Greta Christina (via dyemelikeasunset)
The last sentence is so crucial to understanding what we work for. And it certainly isn’t limited to just women. What is important to any group that is viewed as trivial is also viewed as trivial.
-Amy
(via lipstick-feminists)
Black History Month Calendar Photography
I’ll just leave this here…
=]
Reblogging because this doesn’t have nearly as many notes as it should.
DOPE!!!!
I’ve created these flyers for a school activist project where I bring more attention to the women in history that have been forgotten or ignored. This blog will be an extension of those flyers where I post longer biographies of these women and other bad-ass women like them. Too often women’s achievements have been pushed aside, either by others in their lives, or else by the historians who choose to ignore them. This tumblr is dedicated to celebrating them and bringing their achievements to light!
Depression is very complicated and it affects everyone a little differently. There is not a lot of generalized advice I would feel comfortable giving with confidence. However… there are a few things that come to mind.
- It’s never too soon to ask for help.
- You are not stuck with the first doctor or therapist you see.
- Do not lie.
- Find a passion.
- Do not give up.
1. There is a stigma about depression that seems to make people feel guilty just for having it. Like they don’t deserve help, even if they need it. Many people resist seeking help with epic levels of stubbornness. The thing is, depression can take a while to get its claws completely into your brain. If you seek help as soon as you realize what’s happening, you may be able to treat the depression before your brain gets used to the chemical imbalance. Going to a professional and getting checked out will do you no harm. But delaying this option could make treatment much harder. The sooner the better.
Specifically for teens in this situation…
Sometimes getting help requires parental involvement. If you are lucky, you will have supportive, understanding parents and this will not be a huge problem. Unfortunately that will not always be the case. If you are worried about telling your parents, I would suggest finding another adult that you trust and can confide in. Perhaps a teacher, a counselor, an aunt or uncle. Someone that your parents will respect and listen to. Explain the situation and ask if they wouldn’t mind confronting your parents together. Strength in numbers can be very effective.
2. I have come across quite a few people that think the first person they see is the only one that can ever treat them. Having good patient/doctor and patient/therapist chemistry is vital to getting effective treatment for depression. You may have to explore some very dark emotional pain with this person, and if you do not like or trust them, it will be very hard to open up. If you have any reservations about your doctor or therapist, don’t be afraid to try another one.
3. Under no circumstances should you lie to your doctor or therapist. You are not the first person to think, “If I tell them this, they might think I’m a terrible person.” These people are trained not to judge you or your actions. They are trained to use that information to help you. To guide you. To treat you. If you tell them lies to make yourself look better, you risk not getting well again.
4. Depression has a way of holding you back from doing anything productive. There will be things you want to do, things you should be doing, but it destroys your motivation. Passion is often immune to this effect. Finding something you are passionate about can help you get out of this rut and even help motivate you in other areas. Some people are lucky and already know their passion. Whether it is art, music, writing, movies, knitting… whatever. But sometimes people don’t know what their passion is. Especially if you are younger. If that is the case, I strongly urge you to experiment and find your passion. You don’t even have to be good at it. It just needs to be something you can sink yourself into without a great deal of motivation. For me, my passion is making people happy. I almost feel like I need to do it. And when my depression is trying to slow me down, my passion is usually so powerful that it gives that chemical imbalance the middle finger and I go on about my business. Seek out your passion and it may be just the thing to get you through the days.
5. There was a point in my life in which I felt I had hit bottom. I thought there was no way life could get any better. I felt like if I continued living, life was always going to be as terrible as it was in that moment. When we are young we lack the wisdom and experience to know just how untrue this is. And I think because we don’t know that, far too many of us give up. Life is not a constant downward trajectory. Life is full of ups and downs. All pain fades with time and things will get better. That does not mean you will not find a new pain and go to that low place again. And it does not mean once the pain fades you will live a life full of constant bliss. Life will be filled with bits of joy and bits of pain and everything in between. But the bits of joy are much more profound. They are worth waiting for. And the experience of pain can often make you appreciate the joy even more. If you give up, you will not get to feel just how wonderful those bits of joy are.
Now that I am older I look back at that moment when I nearly gave up and I think about how much I would have regretted it. I think about all the amazing things that I would have missed. I think about all the lives that I have touched since then and how important it was that I stick around. Not giving up can be much easier said than done. And working through the pain can be long and arduous. But your next bit of joy will come. And it will be fantastic. And when the next bit of pain comes, you will be able to handle it even better than before.
Life can be tremendously difficult, but as you get older you will get better at living it. If you give it a chance, you will not regret seeing where it takes you.
Bonus tip…
6. Try getting a corgi if possible.
Why do we have an abortion rate 20% higher than France’s (and more than twice as high as Germany’s), especially considering most doctors here won’t perform them? The answer is any country that has universal health care, where contraception is free, where child care is free or inexpensive, where there is less poverty because people don’t become bankrupt over medical bills — those societies are simply going to have fewer unplanned and unwanted pregnancies.
And there the mask gets pulled off the Bart Stupaks and the “Christians.” If the statistics show that countries with government-provided universal health care and nearly-free abortions are, in fact, the countries with the fewest abortions, then why on earth wouldn’t the Right be the first in line to support universal health care?
Because it isn’t about “universal health care.” It’s about controlling women, period. It’s about sticking your nose in other people’s business. It’s about pushing your religious beliefs on everyone else because voices in your head tell you your Jesus is The One — even though your Jesus never said one single solitary word in any of the four gospels of the Bible about abortion or fertilized eggs being human. You’ve just gone and made it up about “life beginning at conception.” Jesus never said that. The little voice in your head said that, the same little voice that wants your grubby paws on women’s uteruses. You need help. Please get some help and leave the rest of us alone, Mr. Stupak and friends.
—Michael Moore: My Congressman, Bart Stupak, Has Neither a Uterus Nor a Brain (via veruca-assault)
I wish I could reblog this 1,000 times.
(via evangotlib)
Homophobia: The fear that another man will treat you like you treat women.
(via raphmike)
(Source: andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com)
When the Nazi concentration camps were liberated by the Allies, it was a time of great jubilation for the tens of thousands of people incarcerated in them. But an often forgotten fact of this time is that prisoners who happened to be wearing the pink triangle (the Nazis’ way of marking and identifying homosexuals) were forced to serve out the rest of their sentence. This was due to a part of German law simply known as “Paragraph 175” which criminalized homosexuality. The law wasn’t repealed until 1969.
There’s an amazing documentary on this called “Paragraph 175,” you can watch it on YouTube HERE, but a great deal of it is in German and I can’t find a free stream with English subtitles.
They don’t tell you anything about that in History class.
Gentlemen. This is what rape culture is like:
Imagine you have a Rolex watch. Nice fancy Rolex, you bought it because you like the way it looks and you wanted to treat yourself. And then you get beaten and mugged and your Rolex is stolen. So you go to the police. Only, instead of investigating the crime, the police want to know why you were wearing a Rolex instead of a regular watch. Have you ever given a Rolex to anyone else? Is it possible you wanted to be mugged? Why didn’t you wear long sleeves to cover up the Rolex if you didn’t want to be mugged?
And then after that, everywhere you go, there are constant jokes about stealing your Rolex. People you don’t even know whistle at your Rolex and make jokes about cutting your hand off to get it. The media doesn’t help either; it portrays people who wear Rolexes as flamboyant assholes who secretly just want someone to come along and take that Rolex off their hands. When damn, all you wanted was to wear a nice watch without getting harassed for it. When you complain that you are starting to feel unsafe, people laugh you off and say that you are too uptight. Never mind you got violently attacked for the crime of wearing a friggin time piece.
Imagining all that? It sucks, doesn’t it.
Now imagine you could never take the Rolex off.
CNN: http://edition.cnn.com/2013/02/15/world/europe/russia-meteor-shower/index.html?sr=fbmain
BBC: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-21468116
Newser: http://newser.me/WtW5cO
Some videos of the incident: http://bit.ly/Wusznaso …a ten-ton meteor hit Russia this morning.
There’s a guy in my neighborhood who dresses like Jesus Christ. He walks around Fountain, in Hollywood, just doin’ his thing - petting dogs and saying “hi” to everyone. Jesus My Neighbor, and most of the people in L.A., are pretty great. I’m super lucky to know a lot of smart, kind, weird and wonderful people in the city. And my lady friends are especially fantastic.
But you wouldn’t know that by watching “The Women of L.A.”
“The Women of L.A.” is a music video/story about a guy (DJ Lubel) who moved to LA (from NYC) only to be told by his LA friends that no one gets laid in L.A.
No one.Why?
Because the women in this city are awful!
After the expositional introsketch, the song kicks off with a trio of women (including Internet-lebrity Taryn Southern) breaking down exactly why they’re not pulling down their lady pantaloons for guys in L.A.:
Hey you, yes it’s true
We will make your balls blue
We’re the women of LA
We ignore cause you’re poor and you’re not Pauley Shore,
We’re the women of LA
From Westwood to Brentwood
Never would touch your wood
Wrapped in a “Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” homage, DJ enters to address the heart of the issue - that he is rejected by women left and right in Los Angeles because, well, he just doesn’t meet the high standards of the L.A. female population:
This is a story all about how
I moved to Hollywood and get shot down
By girls so hot that you can’t kiss
When your face looks like Andy Dick
The scene is set. Lights, camera, action on:
- Cartoonish women telling us why they’re not having sex with DJ, for shallow reasons I’ve never heard an actual woman (not on a low rate hour long drama) utter.
- DJ justifying the use of these stereotypes, by hiding behind self deprecation.Now that we’ve established that these fictional women, the kind of women who get in cat fights in water troughs on “Dallas”, are not nice, they’re about to get more not nice. Number one, they do lots of drugs.
Hence all the insults, like, until you’re “paid like Nic Cage, go get laid at Rage” - a gay bar in West Hollywood.
(DRAG QUEENS)
What’s worse than not being able to rock it with a hot girl? Having to get busy with a gay dude-looks-like-a-lady. Which is a thing because you know how all gay men will have sex with anything cause they’re gay? Because that’s how gay people work. You just put a butthole in front of them and they’re happy as clams! Gay people are funny cause they’re gay and they do gay things! Jokes!
It wouldn’t be a true song about Los Angeles if the Valley wasn’t promptly skewered. And not only the Valley, overweight girls who live in the Valley!
This is top shelf pussy
(NOT VALLEY GIRLS)
You should try the Vall-ey
(VALLEY GIRLS)
And the music cuts out completely. Just like a record scratch at a party! You know, like when something UNBELIEVABLE happens! Like overweight girls! Whoa! It’s funny ‘cause they’re not rail thin! Who loves chubby girls? No one! Who saw GIRLS this weekend?! Who read Rex Reed’s IDENTITY THIEF review? POINT PROVEN! Jokes!
DJ’s complaining that hot girls won’t go to the bone zone with him, but then, he won’t go to the bone zone with chubby girls from the Valley. Can you believe a person could have such a Grand Canyon lack of awareness about what he’s doing? He’s doing the very thing to these Valley girls that he’s complaining is being done to him by the hands of hot girls. What a fun little circle of bullshit!
(WEST HOLLYWOOD GIRLS)
All you need to know about these girls is they love kale juice, Lululemon, and talking about working at CAA. Which all seems like normal women trying to build a career for themselves in L.A. while staying healthy, but we’re quickly reminded that these girls get plenty of $$$ help from their dads! Unlike guys in L.A., who have never spent a dollar of their parents’ money, because guys are men and they do men things, like make money.
(BEVERLY HILLS GIRLS)
Persians. Too much perfume. Hair. A simple boiling down of a type of woman, a city and a culture, all at once. It’s like magic…but sad and hurtful.
And for no reason, other than to probably drive views, Jaleel White shows up.
He does an ill placed rap where he almost smashes a TV. Well, he hits it real hard with a bat, but nothing breaks. Perhaps he’s not mad enough about the boots he hasn’t been knockin’?
Question: What’s the best AIDS musical to get a misogynist’s point across? RENT, of course.
Five hundred twenty four hundred six thousand women,
Have rejected me in LA County.
Five hundred twenty four hundred six thousand dollars,
Is what you need to get pussy.
Finally, someone put a number on how much it costs to buy another human being! Or at least, a vagina.
What has to be the worst scene/lyric in this whole five minute tirade against girls, are these lyrics:
They don’t drink on dates
Cause they’re afraid of DUI
One wine’s not enough
To get between my thighs
First of all, rape. Secondly, shaming a person for not drinking enough?! Incredible. Remember earlier when that girl was snorting cocaine? What a loser! Remember just now when that girl wouldn’t drink a lot? What a loser!I wrote a song, here’s the first part:
It makes me sad this is a thing
I’m a woman in L.A.Look, I’m sure DJ Lubel didn’t set out to make something misogynistic or anti-women.
This is what makes it so horrifying. He doesn’t even know what he’s doing. It’s the attitude of “I’m a guy, how dare these women reject me!? “, implying that women are here to serve men, despite how women feel. Which was a fun idea back when it was called “The Donna Reed Show.” And because he is blind to what he is doing, he doesn’t realize the degree to which he is completely dehumanizing women to the point of denying that they have their own wants and desires and thoughts and opinions, all so he can promote a series of LA clichés that were sort of acceptable before 1985.
DJ, and others who like the video, I believe, think it’s all in good fun. It’s exactly like when my mom says something hurtful to me, cause she’s passive aggressive and Irish, and then says “Just kidding!” As if “joking around” is an acceptable excuse to act like a total jerk face.There’s also a deep river of anger throughout “Women of L.A.”. I get it. Dating is hard. People are mean. It happens to everyone. Last year, I went on about 40 dates, all with guys who were not right for me. I paid for my own meals and my own drinks and I spent a lot of money. But, I don’t hate the entire male population of Los Angeles because none of those guys worked out - because it’s unfair to use hurt feelings and resentment to attack an entire gender.
Last year, I met DJ. I was dating his friend (pre-40 dates nightmare). My boyfriend played me this song and I remember saying “oh, this is the worst idea, how could a person write that, etc.” Despite that, I gave DJ a birthday present. Cause he’s a human being, and it was his birthday and I wanted him to have a fun birthday present. Which is why it makes me doubly sad/mad that I am writing this piece. I feel like if it were the 80’s, I would have taken the demo tape and burned it, so this never happened. But, I don’t have a time machine and this didn’t happen in the 80’s and this whole scenario is impossible so I shouldn’t waste everyone’s time with it. But just know, I had the thought.
My point is, I know DJ, and he’s a nice guy. And he deserves to be loved and have a great relationship with a great girl. In the meantime, there’s a lesson to be learned about how to not vilify, demean, degrade and disrespect an entire city of women just because you can’t get your dick wet.
Pussy’s not a right - it’s a privilege. And if you want it, treat the things wrapped around pussies (women) with respect and dignity.
It’s what Jesus would do. Jesus my neighbor.
(special thanks to Alex Fernie (@ferniecommaalex) and Allison Hord (@hordie))
As a woman who lives and works in Los Angeles, I am ecstatic that someone more eloquent than me put everything I felt while watching this awful shit into words. My commentary would just be an incoherent sputter of rage and murder.
It’s One Of The Craziest Internet Rumors About Guns. And As It Turns Out, It’s True.
It’s a fact so jaw-dropping it’s unbelievable — people thought it was a crazy Internet rumor until Politifact verified it. But it’s true: More Americans have died just since 1960 from gun incidents — suicides, accidents, and homicides — than died in every war in U.S. history. The deadliest war the U.S. has ever had is the war we waged against ourselves.
Chuck Klosterman on Royce White - Grantland
Royce White is a first-round draft pick of the Houston Rockets who has anxiety disorder.
(via brilliantorange)
“Ask your female friends, if you have any, if they’ve ever walked home late at night with a key pushed through their knuckles, just in case, if they’ve ever crossed the street to avoid a stranger, just in case, if they’ve ever taken the long way home because of the weird guy on the corner, just in case. Ask them if they’ve ever made up a boyfriend to get a guy to leave them alone, if they’ve ever gotten off a train car and moved to the next because you just never know, if they’ve ever shelled out for a cab because men like you were at the bus stop.”
