This song was my first women’s studies class. I wrote down the names of everyone mentioned and started researching them one by one. It’s so awesome to see that “Hot Topic” is STILL inspiring people to make art and raise awareness of female and queer artists, especially the ones who are at risk of being lost to history.
Make those into a manicure, nail people!
I’m sad I missed out on LT, they were off my radar for various reasons but I did go to what I think was their last show and loved it.
Marsha P Johnson
photo by Randy Wicker
Stonewall Veteran and STAR co-founder. Learn you history folx. If it weren’t for trans women of color like Marsha and Sylvia, we’d still be hiding in dark bars praying the cops don’t raid it.
“I’m not ashamed to dress ‘like a woman’ because I don’t think it’s shameful to be a woman.” -Iggy Pop
Iggy pop is such a bad ass. There’s an interview I watched where his manager talked about having to bail him out of jail. The manager shows up and Iggy is drunk, disorderly, and wearing a dress. His manager asked “Ig, why are you wearing a womans dress?” and Iggy replied “I beg to differ, this is a mans dress.”
It’s like Eddie Izzard says - ‘They’re not women’s clothes. They’re my clothes. I bought them.’
“I fell in to a burnin’ ring of fire, I went down down down… and the flames went higher.”
A shot of the eclipse in West Texas.
And then Fantasy Literature rides in on a unicorn and is like ‘COME ON SCI-FI. LET’S GO FIGHT DRAGONS ON THE MOON AND LEAVE THESE BORING BASTARDS WITH THEIR TEA.’
Art by Tom Gauld.
Gonna have a child (or adopt a pre-teen girl) just so I can throw her a period party.
I threw a Period Party for a bunch of middle school girls I know, and it was a roaring success. For an hour and a half they ate red jelly beans, drank raspberry leaf tea, and gave their red balloons panty-liner mustaches. I read them stories while they dunked tampons in their teacups; we all scribbled our favorite euphemisms for menstruating on the tablecloth; and they all got favor bags (filled with Teen Midol and tampons).
Does that not sound like a blast!? I wanna have one at Bel-Tower, even though almost everyone that comes through there is probably a pro at menstruating by now.
Maybe I’ll just do this by myself every month. I’ve got a day or two to plan…
karaj: sl33pcr33p: hysteriarama: I feel major feminist boredom when talking…
I feel major feminist boredom when talking about rape. Like it feels bad, it happens a lot, we get it, but I don’t know how to talk about it and not feel tragic in a really trite way.
Whatever violation is borecore
Puke on my face
OK THIS IS IMPORTANT TO ME BECAUSE
i can talk about almost all of my traumas and do reference them in a bored way like, oh yeah this because rape, or blah blah my dead dad, or alcoholism or abuse or whatever it’s all boring because it just is
i am because that is
but it really bothers other people like hand wringing like “i’m so sorry” like pats on my shoulder like sotrite and like i don’t want you to be weird about it i just want to be able to talk about it because it doesn’t really matter to me in a context of tragedy, it just is, and we should talk about it because it is, when it’s relevant, not for pathos and not for oppression points or whatever
i hate when people use their traumas for pathos, unless you’re doing it to get a dude to shut up, because shut up dudes
and i think a lot of it is because i never really recognized them as traumas and by the time i did they were so ingrained in my psyche that they don’t feel out of place or like i should identify them in a way that is separate from the healthier parts of my life
it just is
it all just is
and it’s boring
also important. “i don’t want you to be weird about it i just want to be able to talk about it.” this is totally part of why i casually mention my miscarriage and the psych ward so much. so that it is okay that i can mention my miscarriage and the psych ward casually. and so that anyone/everyone can. relevant. also, yes to using it to get dudes to shut up, since fuck you, you actually have no idea and you should know that you have no idea and that your not having any idea is a privilege.
this is why I talk about the mental illness in my family and the abuse I grew up with all the time casually. because I don’t give a fuck if it makes you uncomfortable, life is fucking uncomfortable and shit sucks and if we are ever going to destigmatize those things and make it safe for people to talk about/share/process/relate to one another w/r/t their experiences, that shit starts on an individual level. if we’re ever going to fix or change all of the systems that oppress people we have to understand how these things affect people on an individual basis, how policy decisions trickle down and what we can do to combat oppression on every level. to organize we have to talk about these things and it has to be not weird, it has to go beyond “I’M SO SORRY.” people who have been through these things all understand that it’s not always TRAUMA and OH GOD CRYING and DEPRESSION, sometimes it’s anger and sometimes it’s laughing and sometimes it’s self-medicating and sometimes it’s just nothing, it’s just a thing that happened and it’s a part of you so what does that mean about you? the personal is political, fucking always. if I ever had had an abortion, or if I ever have one, I would/will talk about that shit all the time too. basically, feelings vomit all the time and sometimes you just want to talk about that shit with someone who will just laugh with you about it. laughter as a response to “terrible” things all the time. when I was working at the domestic violence shelter I had some of the best times making terrible jokes with my coworkers. you know? like sometimes shit is just so fucking ridiculous and horrible that it becomes funny.
“ i never really recognized them as traumas and by the time i did they were so ingrained in my psyche that they don’t feel out of place or like i should identify them in a way that is separate from the healthier parts of my life.” - this part especially is so fucking important.
yes.
All of this. I talk about my anxiety all the time and also domestic violence & emotional abuse (in my case it was some serious motherfucking gaslighting) and make jokes and rely on it to get me out of other shit that I’m not interested in and sometimes cry but not want to fucking ~*talk*~ or whatever. Also the bolded is super important.
I really wish that I could talk about that shit casually. I used to all the time, because I literally didn’t know how to interact with people when questions such as “Where did you go to high school?” or “Why are you starting college now?” required exposing myself as a survivor of really fucked up shit if I wanted to be honest. That vulnerability just became too much, especially when I started telling people that I was a feminist, because people would say, “Oh, THAT’S why you hate men.” Or, the conversation would inevitably veer towards, “But you’re so strong,” which is a trope that I hate and that many people have written about on here before. Like, that shit is boring. But it just got to be too emotionally exhausting to be cavalier about it, and there are still very few people that I feel comfortable sharing my past with because they have no vocabulary and they have no context to process it with.
It’s easy enough on Tumblr to be a little more relaxed about it, and when Sarah and I hung out in Virginia, we joked about anxieties and vulnerabilities and told secrets and it felt very natural.
it’s so coolllll that people are talking like this, feels v. relevant to current thoughts/feelinz —> there is something that makes me feel thrown off balance about reframing the discussion of rape in this way, in a challenging good way
my story is boring because it has happened to so many people, because it is systemic and mundane in its commonness. it’s also a real thing, a trauma (in the sense of being something both outside and inside, unthinkable/barely comprehensible, but always there, a hovering void that words are insufficient to hold) that has affected every aspect of my life since it happened. it’s boring and it’s significant, and i can’t talk about it flippantly. it’s something that’s really hard for me to talk about and i’m also thinking about it in terms of ‘incitement to discourse’ in the sense that you are only allowed to talk about your trauma in these prescribed ways, in the confessional mode, as a plea for sympathy or help; the only way power wants to hear about trauma is in this way that strips the teller of the story of agency, casts them as irrational, damaged, hysterical. so telling stories of trauma in a way that feels true for you is crucial - i like what people are sayin about all the different types of possible responses, it’s not all crying and whatever - there’s no “appropriate” response to trauma. that’s important. i also want to affirm that i don’t have to talk about it, i don’t have to be bored by it, i can be bored by it, i can be overwhelmed by it, i can talk about it in crazy ways, i don’t have to minimize it. it’s okay to be bored by it and to not be. it’s okay to feel it however you do, while trying to keep in mind the bigger ways that abuse and rape culture work, in order to avoid the isolating and narrow confessional/individualist mode.
i’m really fascinated by the ideas of boredom, of feminist boredom, along with/opposed to some idea of hysterical storytelling (mostly the only way i can recount my feelings is in the mode of extreme “melodrama” but i think this is cool, reclaiming and legitimizing crazy “too-much” emotions). using both boredom and hysteria in a radical way, because they’re inextricably connected with each other.
All these colors were achieved with red, yellow, blue, and green food coloring mixed into white frosting. The amount of drops needed for the color you want is underneath the icing color. So convenient. :)
I love Mint Chip = 3 blue, 3 green
Click to enlarge!
(via annaandblue)
Reblogging this for future reference, I guess ….
Same
