There’s A Connection Between The Numbing Sprays For Your Feet So You Can Wear High Heels And The Anal

We celebrate David Bowie, Freddie Mercury and Prince for their gender-nonconforming amazingness as we should, but let us not forget

Annie Lennox

Grace Jones

Sinead O‘Connor

Dolores O‘Riordan

Patti Smith

Tracy Chapman

Please add if you like, i do not own the photos

Josephine Baker (June 3, 1906 - April 12, 1975)

An American-born French dancer, Josephine Baker grew up in poverty. Between the ages of 8-10, she was out of school, helping to support her family, taking on jobs such as cleaning houses and babysitting for white families.

At age 16 she was touring with a dance troupe from Philadelphia. In 1923 she joined the chorus in a road company performing the musical comedy Shuffle Along and then moved to New York City, where she advanced steadily through the show Chocolate Dandies on Broadway and the floor show of the Plantation Club. In 1925 she performed in France at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, where she introduced her danse sauvage. She went on to become one of the most popular music hall entertainers in France. In 1936 she returned to the states, but despite being a major celebrity in Europe, was not accepted by American audiences, who referred to her as a “Negro Wench”. So she returned to Europe.

In the late 1930s, she became a French citizen, and performed in several films before WWII halted her career. During the German occupation in France, Josephine worked with the Red Cross and the resistance, passing along secrets she had heard from the Nazis to French Military officials, after performing for them. Passing along said secrets by writing with invisible ink on music papers.

In the 1950s and 60s, she returned to the US to help the fight against racism. She refused to perform for segregated audiences, which forced some club owners to integrate their clubs. She also began to adopt many children of different nationalities and races, calling them “The Rainbow Tribe”.

Josephine was an amazing woman, who worked hard and did so much for the world, and we love her here. 💜

Extra Trivia

Josephine was a bisexual who had an affair with Frida Kahlo, the two having met in 1939.

In 1963 she was one of the few women allowed to speak at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom

Her opposition against segregation and discrimination was recognized by the NAACP

Unusual for her time, she was a woman who never had to depend on a man for financial stability, and was more than willing to leave a bad relationship (her first marriage only lasting a matter of weeks)

Kept reading stuff about blood types and stumbled upon this from the Ascension Glossary. It's complex, but its pretty interesting

it’s “kill your rapist’ when it’s a sticker you can sell on etsy but “she’s the abuser actually” when it’s real life

Although misogyny necessarily plays its part into the whole JKR debacle, I think the 'vitriol' as you said is mostly caused by the fact that a large portion of the haters grew up with the Harry Potter books whilst they haven't, for example, ever seen a Polanski film in their life. And JKR in a way could be a sort of parental figure to them. You know, as ~problematic~ as Freud may be, he was onto something when he spoke of one's need to symbolically kill the father; and the same people who practically worshipped the HP novels growing up had already begun dismissing them as child's play when the Rowling vs. Transactivists affair started. To quote another writer here, the issue crystallised at that point.

@helshades

It's so funny that you're bringing that up because I had this exact conversation with my man around a week ago. As I said in the tags of the post that prompted those couple of rants of mine, he's currently reading them for the first time at the rip old age of 35. A result of him giving Philosopher Stone to his pupils this year (HP so bad, primary schools use them to get kids to read, apparently) and making a point of doing everything he asks of them and that include learning all the poetry by heart, and therefore reading all the books as well. After finishing PS, he asked for the rest since he was surprised at how much funnier it was than the movie.

Anyway, I don't exactly remember how we ended up talking about JKR and the discourse currently surrounding her, but he made the exact same point as you, he mentioned how interesting it was that Freud might actually have had some interesting ideas hidden in his work somewhere in there, and that some people do need to "kill the mother / father" in order to grow up and leave childhood behind. I pointed out to him that it was rather obvious and blatantly observable all around us, but that, as per usual, people took that point way too literally, imagining that it meant killing your actual mother/father and marrying the other one so to speak; when a father or mother figure doesnt even have to be someone close to you nor someone you know at all - just a person or even a concept that shaped you enough when you were younger, that you are now feeling the need to "rebel" against in order to mature.

Which really goes back full circle to the point I constantly make when it comes to HP and how people are unable to read (just because you can decipher doesn't mean you can read, I will stand by that, always), and how really, most discourses and analysis surrounding it are people fancying themselves smart by what they believe is "deconstructing" something they loved in childhood, when in reality it's 8 grade level analysis (if I'm generous) and honestly just look like they're going through their teenage phase of explaining to mum why she actually sucks.

Still though, I'll keep believing that if Joanne Rowling had been Jonathan Rowling, there wouldn't be quite the same level of vitriol directed at her and that her being a woman plays a role in how confortable and justified people feel in robbing her of her achievement and devaluing her work.

My gripe with Euphoria. Part 1:

The Defamation of Kat and Cassie

So against my better judgment, I watched the darn show....

Both seasons.

It had your typical "teen" drama filled with drugs, sex, and depression, and it was exploitation at its finest.

This is not to say that teens don't experience these things. Far from it, but the way the show frames these experiences does not come off as genuine. We get the sexualization of teen girls and the exploration of how women view their feminity. By exploration, I mean it was some grown man's interpretation of what he feels a powerful and complex teenage girl should look like. That usually always deals with her sexuality. She should be sexually desirable, even when her mental health is at stake. This is shown drastically in characters like Kat and Cassie, two young girls who feel like they are "empowered" in their sexually escapades, and this is done at the expense of their childhood. Teens are practically still children. Legal age has nothing to do with the development of the brain. These characters were told that their value was rested in mainly their sexuality, especially since society saw them as expendable and useless. They tried to show Kat coming into how she views herself, but that storyline was quickly tossed and they left her character hollow.

Image of Kat Hernandez, played by Barbie Ferreira

She started off an actual lead in the story. We see her as the odd one out amongst her friends, Maddy and BB. This oddity, of course, is her virginity. The concept of losing virginity goes back into the idea of a woman's purity and social standing. I have grown to loathe these plot points in teen shows. They are never handled with care or consideration, especially as it relays the idea that a girl can't truly progress in life until she has been conquered, presumably by a man. The story remains even more tasteless when these girls enter a party and Kat is coerced into having sex with some boy from another school. This results in a video being spread, showing her engaging in this deed. I'm sure some laws were broken here, but nevertheless, Kat has to do some damage control in order to stay out of trouble. It is unfortunate to see the show almost enjoy displaying what was clearly her first experience with sex in such a degrading manner. For the sake of plot, I'm sure it suited her to not have her face shown. Still, it makes one wonder about the facelessness of women who are watched online from such humiliating videos. We don't even know if they consented to being video taped. Kat sure didn't.

In episode 2 of season 1, we continue her story with flashbacks of her childhood that show her struggling with her weight as well as the loss of her first boyfriend. Her fight with body image is inherent. Even more heart-rending, Kat finds this new spike in internet fame to be intriguing and goes on to upload more videos of herself to a p*rn site (faceless of course).

Her cam-girl status was simply to shock, not offer meaningful commentary on teen girls and the exposure of themselves to a world that despises them. I believe the actress herself even commented on not wanting another "fat girl" plot line. Of course, not much followed from that outside of her story being cast out.

Consequently, we see her character get more and more one note. Thankfully, she has quit her dominatrix job by season 2, but ber struggles with identity are still realistically persistent. The show refuses to expand on that past episode 3, however. She grows unsatsified with a boy, Ethan, who appears to really like her. The show tries to dispaly how her self-esteem could not be solved through sex, but they refuse to leave her with a shred of diginity. At this point, we can infer that she loathes her body, but is afraid to admit that to a world that will reject her admission. Instead, she fantasizes about getting with someone that views her as an object to be sexually assaulted (shown in a weird Game of Thrones where she is practically r*ped by a warrior). Again, a real life circumstance for some teen girls and women, but also one the show refuses to explore further. We see her then gaslight and berate Ethan in the 2nd season's last few episodes, presenting the idea that girls only want "bad boys" in the end. This is in refusal to address Kat's emerging belief in how she lacks confidence herself and how it was a facade. We don't get to see her feel devastated by her actions, despite being shown as a character very capable of sympathy for others. Her facade of care free sexual appeal is put to the fore-front, and we as the audience are meant to see her just as shallow as she portrays herself. It is also important to note that her counterpart from the 2012 Euphoria series, a character by the name of Noy, dealt with a little more plot wise. Noy's character is actually shown to face long-term consequences from her sexual exploration. Kat's edition of this is shown to be so careless and almost glorifying as a result. Sex of any kind came come with risks, and that should have been shown for her. We don't know much about the men she experiments with, both online and off, how old they are, or what they've done in their pasts. The plus-sized girl in this series is not given any more nuance than she is in most other media portrayals. Kat is still the promiscuous and plus-sized girl who is hard to love. We are no longer able to have her point of view. We are no longer able to sympathize with the girl in this seemingly female-centric show.

Image of Cassie Howard, played by Sydney Sweeney

Cassie is shown desperately clinging to any male figure in her life, carelessly placing her own friends on the back burner. This may be reminiscent of real life, but again, the show does not attempt to humanize her. We are somehow meant to objectify her, especially with the amount of times we've seen her topless. The camera seems to thoroughly enjoy scanning over her body. It matches the ominous and far from hidden attention that her body received upon reaching puberty. This attention, of course, was given by men, strangers and family members alike. Of course, she is naturally unaware of the male gaze as it strips her first of her awareness, hiding behind smiles and gentle gestures. As her body blossoms, the world decides when it would be best to attack. Much like Kat, this attack is confused for affection. With an absent father, much of any male attention can be taken as fickle. Subconsciously, it becomes her mission to keep them however she can. She lives in a world where keeping a boy means you must give much of yourself away to please him. As we know, this does not earn the male’s respect, but rather his denigration. Her character is humiliated and remains unaware, as we see boys talking crudely about her behind her back. To them, she is sexually starved. It is almost sadistic, and masochistic on her oart, how much we are shown her being desperate. Even as we see her get with the seemingly kinder Mckay, it wasn't long before she was being roughhoused by him in bed and gobbling goldfish for his college initiation. The actress, Sydney Sweeney, even explicitly came out and said she asked for less nudity in her role. This is not something that should have to be told, but I guess the director didn't see her for anything but eye candy. You shouldn't need nudity to enthrall and audience, especially at the expense of your actresses. Sam Levinson (writer, producer, director) appeared to have eased away from nudity, noticeably in the show's second season. That did little to polish the show, however. In the 2nd season's final moments, we see Cassie spiral into a fit of grief and righteous fury, feeling rightfully that the world is against her. Of course, this does not excuse her from her own selfish acts. She is decides to get with the ex-boyfriend of her best friend, Maddy, and hide this up until all is revealed by a character I will discuss later. We know the origin of Cassie's lust for love, but she is ultimately shown as shallow and in the wrong. We do not get to discuss how she can come to find more stability in her life, to love herself and love other women. She just simply exists as visual entertainment beside the near sociopathic Nate Jacobs. We see Nate pull her close and push her away, and she is willing to come back everytime. We are supposed to believe she is not allowed mercy, even as she struggles with her own hidden addiction. We see her character painfully go through an abortion, which surely contributed to her declining mental state. This is shown in episode 7 of season 1. It's a plot fleetingly introduced and would never be spoken of again. Shock value for you. We do not get to see her mourn over this loss, although we are aware that this teenager would not do well with a child at the moment. Still, we don't know how she feels about having kids. We do not know how she feels about sex (I mean truly feels, not in how she presents it in scenes with Mckay and Nate).

Maddy confronting Cassie in season 2 episode 8

We do not get to see her discover that love does not exist solely in connection to a man. It should have existed in the love for her sister, possibly even in her flawed mother, or in Maddy and Kat. Primarily, that love should have been for herself, even if it took a long time to find. I highly doubt the upcoming 3rd season will give her that level of complexity and growth. She is just a dramatic plot point. Someone to be put in her place when she breaks under societal pressures. Obviously, self love is not everyone's conclusion, but Cassie, like Kat, is young and very impressionable. It is difficult to tell if the show sees them as such. Girls are told to act like mature adults, and are shamed if they don't achieve this in a way that leaves them both f*ckable and manageable. There is still time for them to learn, but where is their help? Or their conclusions?

"Human beings see oppression vividly when they're the victims. Otherwise they victimize blindly and without a thought."

Isaac Bashevis Singer

We were together. I forget the rest.

source: annalaura_art

I am speechless…

Everytime I see Germaine Greer mentioned on radfem tumblr I get a knee jerk reaction thinking about that creepy pedo book she made