I had not realised that there was a gender divide in craft shopping, but think about it:
If it's a "hobby" store, it is full of model airplanes, TTRPG miniatures, and construction sets, intended to appeal to guys.
If it is a "craft" store, it is full of yarn, thread, paint, scrapbooking supplies, and jewellery-making supplies, assumed to appeal to gals. #Craft#sexism@fiberarts@fibrearts
a woman is murdered by her male partner every 11 days in Australia
As a society we talk about the problem non-stop and when I say society, I mean women. As for men and boys discussing these issues, no thanks. After all the pandering to White Ribbon, you think you'd get that this doesn't work. At this stage, I am less than interested in what men and boys have to say about violence against women because it will be some idiotic gaslighting.
Turns out civil liberties for men outweigh a safe life for women. But I reckon, put ankle bracelets on them all, every man who's ever had a partner and then separates from that partner. Sure, get all indignant about this - but have you got a better idea?
These figures make it clear to me that there is something wrong with men. Society won't fix this problem. Governments have to take charge. We need to preemptively teach men and boys how to deal with feelings
In 2024, we are running at the violent death of a woman every 4.4 days
Today in Labor History April 21, 1816: Charlotte Brontë, English novelist and poet, was born. After her mother died of cancer, in 1821, her father sent the five Brontë sisters to Clergy Daughters' School, where the two eldest sisters, Maria and Elizabeth, contracted tuberculosis. The disease killed them both in 1825. Charlotte always said that the terrible conditions in that school stunted her physical development and caused her lifelong health problems. Charlotte wrote her first poem in 1829, at the age of 13. She would go on to write 200 more poems. In 1836, she asked Poet Laureate Robert Southey for encouragement as a writer. He replied, “Literature cannot be the business of a woman’s life, and ought not to be.” Because of this advice, she chose to publish under the gender-neutral name of Currer Bell, to avoid prejudice. She published a book of poetry in 1846, and her most famous novel, “Jane Eyre,” in 1847. In Jane Eyre, she uses the Clergy Daughters' School as the model for the school attended by her eponymous protagonist, Jane Eyre. Bronte died in 1855, most likely from hyperemesis gravidarum, a complication of pregnancy.
As young adults, my brothers and I thoroughly looted our parent’s library. I still have many of those books, with their dog-eared pages and faint whiff of mildew. I think of them as comfort food for the mind. I picked up some great Melville that way, and Jack London, too. But my favorite score was a matching set of Jayne Eyre and Wuthering Heights that I recently found in their library, after my father died. My mom told me that they had belonged to her mother, who passed them down to her. And now she was passing them down to me. Great literature, of course, but they also contain beautiful artwork. And provenance, with my grandmother’s name printed on the inside cover.
"It just frustrates me that I need to be aware of men's impulses… I don't want to be worrying like 'Oh, that guy over there, he could just suddenly be like, 'I want to kill you'."
For the last 4 years, the Tasmanian Museum of Old and New Art has been running an installation called The Ladies Lounge. Only people who identify as ladies are allowed to enter. In the lounge, they can sit in luxury and look at famous artworks by Picasso etc, which are not available elsewhere in the museum. They are served champagne and pampered by male butlers. It was meant as a comment on exclusionary men's clubs (which still exist in Australia and elsewhere).
Some dude got upset about it and sued the gallery for entry at the anti-discrimination tribunal. The artist, Kirsha Kaechele, said she was "absolutely delighted" that the exhibit had been taken to court. “The men are experiencing Ladies Lounge, their experience of rejection is the artwork,” she said.
She then turned the tribunal hearing into part of the art as well, by having a group of women observing the hearing dress like her and mimic her every move. They did not disrupt the hearing, and at the end of proceedings they exited the tribunal to the song Simply Irresistible.
Kaechele argued in her defence the Ladies Lounge was “a response to the lived experience of women forbidden from entering certain spaces throughout history” and promoted equal opportunity.
The tribunal found against the gallery and is ordering them to allow men to enter the exhibit. MONA is removing the exhibit instead.
I’m a cis male, but my autistic traits correlate with those of cis female individuals.
The study of autism is plagued with sexism, even to this day. There is definitely more awareness of the problem nowadays, but the prevalent view of how autism presents in people is largely based on antiquated stereotypes. If you are white, male, and you annoy your parents, you are more likely to get diagnosed by the professionals, than if you are not white, not male, and manage to mask your autism.
(A quick note on my terminological choices. I have no idea how being trans or nonbinary may affect autistic presentation. I don’t mean to exclude, but I also don’t want to speak about things that I’m not familiar with. I’m sorry about this.)
I believe now that my own deceased mother was autistic too, but went undiagnosed because of this sexism. She was bipolar, and alcoholic. These are often the conditions that women who are not diagnosed experience. She was treated for both conditions, but no treatment took. These treatments did not take, because they were dealing with the symptoms of autism, without dealing with the autism itself.
Early on in my research about autism, I came upon this site:
I’ve taken many of the self-assessment tests there, and I always end up neurotypical or borderline autistic. The DSM-5 is not helpful either. Actually, I think it is a step back from the online self-assessment tests. No psychiatrist of mine has ever suggested autism as an explanation for my mental troubles. I’ll remind you that I’m self-diagnosed.
Fediverse user @ImmedicableME recently posted a link to this page:
It is not the first time I find that the female presentation of autism is more reflective of how I present, too. In the book Unmasking Autism by Devon Price, the author talks of a period of time during which doctors talked about male and female autism. When I was reading this book, I could easily see my traits listed among those that doctors assigned to females.
In fiction, too, I find myself closer to the female autistic characters than the male ones. I am nothing like Rain Man, or Sheldon Cooper. I’m not rude, nor do I have an obsession with trains. The character I compare myself readily to is Quinni from Heartbreak High, an autistic girl.
For the record, I do not think that it is scientifically valid, or useful to talk about “male” and “female” autism anymore. I do not have a problem with the page I linked to above, which gives a list of traits generally linked with being female. It is important to raise the awareness that autism in females may present differently than the stereotypes.
However, once the awareness has been raised, it is better to drop the labels male and female. I am a cis male who presents mostly like a female. I think, just like my mother was undiagnosed because she did not present the male stereotype, so am I have been undiagnosed by the professionals because I do not present as the male stereotype either. Still, again, once I’ve given this explanation, I no longer want to use the binary to explain autism.
Now, I don’t have a great explanation for why I present the way I do. I suspect the pressure of living with a narcissistic father are partially to blame. I sometimes say that I don’t experience meltdowns, but this is not correct. I do experience them, but very rarely. My father, however, is an expert at triggering meltdowns in me. He knows exactly what buttons to push. Therefore, to avoid presenting too big an opportunity to him to press my buttons, I’ve learned to camouflage my autism.
My mother’s and my case are direct examples of how sexism hinders our access to medical care. We’ve both been bitten in the ass because of our manifestation of symptoms did not conform to the stereotype.
UC President Drake just announced they've appointed Catherine Spear to head UC's new Systemwide Office of Civil Rights (which will include a Systemwide Office of Disability Rights under it).
The announcement does not go into what their lived experience qualifications might be.
@disability@academicchatter " Hiring Catherine is one of a series of steps we are taking to provide centralized oversight for these campus functions and a more consistent approach to how the University responds to allegations of discrimination and harassment." ⬅️ These framings continue to give the game away. For them it is not about NOT discriminating. Not about NOT being inaccessible and toxic places for marginalized parts of the public that funds them to be. It's simply about responding to allegations and trying to keep from getting sued too hard. #Racism#Sexism#Ableism#Disability#UCAccessNow
A Michelin-starred New York sushi restaurant is facing criticism for serving smaller portions to its female patrons, charging the same price ($700 each for omakase service). A spokesperson for the restaurant, Sushi Noz, says that the diners may have misinterpreted the interaction. "Before the sushi section of the menu begins, the chef will often ask first-time guests if they prefer smaller rice portions, an offer which they are more than welcome to decline," they wrote in a statement to TODAY. Here's a look at what happened, along with some context on the history of "ladies' menus."
Reading Diane Lacey's open letter about the (self-)censorship scandal of the Hugo Awards, the impetus of collusion/slating from Chinese publishers stood out. zionius actually dug further and presented evidence that the guilty party appeared to be Science Fiction World, which was involved in the Worldcon. So I thought I'd type up...
Madame Bovary, by Gustave Flaubert. You are an early 19th century Frenchwoman, a farmer’s daughter who becomes the wife of a boring doctor, but when you want more to life than that offers, your options are limited (by men). 2 of 5 library cats 🐈 🐈. #bookstodon@bookstodon#reading#books#france#sexism
I'm not passing judgement, but FIDE, the World chess governing body has announced that the Candidates Tournaments (final qualifying stage of the World Championship) will have different time controls for the Open and Women's only events, the women's tournament having shorter time controls.
And although the events are being held concurrently, and both are final stage eliminations for the respective World Championships, the Women's only event offers half the prize fund than the Open event does.
The issue of whether there should be separate events is another thing...
Today in Writing History December 26, 1891: The author Henry Miller, American was born. I still have the copy of Tropic of Cancer that I stole from my parents when I was a teenager. And it still has the graffiti that a French feminist friend scrawled in it when visiting me: “Sexist piece of shit!” In the 1980s, when I was visiting Paris, she told me that all punk rock was sexist. So, I combed through the Parisian record shops and found her a copy of “Penis Envy,” by Crass. After that, she conceded that some punk rock was good, maybe even radically feminist.
Today in Labor History December 17, 1760: Deborah Sampson was born on this date in Massachusetts. Sampson disguised herself as a man in order to fight with the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War. She called herself Robert Shirtliff (as in don’t lift my shirt) and stood 5’9”, taller than the average man in those days. She fought in several skirmishes with British forces before being wounded and discovered and then honorably discharged from the army. She later petitioned the government to be repaid the wages that had been denied her because she was a woman. Her friend Paul Revere advocated for her full compensation. Finally, in 1816, Congress granted her request. There are several other women known to have secretly fought in this war. Sampson’s story has been portrayed in several plays and works of fiction, including “Portrait of Deborah: A Drama in Three Acts” (1959) by Charles Emery, “I'm Deborah Sampson: A Soldier of the Revolution” (1977) by Patricia Clapp and Revolutionary (2014), by Alex Myers, one of her descendants. Whoopi Goldberg played her in an episode of “Liberty Kids.”
The Exceptions: Nancy Hopkins, MIT, and the Fight for Women in Science
From the Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist who broke the story, the inspiring account of the sixteen female scientists who forced MIT to publicly admit it had been discriminating against its female faculty for years—sparking a nationwide reckoning with the pervasive sexism in science.
The whole “men hunt, women gather” idea is yet another example of uncritically assuming modern western norms have some sort of ancient basis in nature or biology. #science#gender#sexism
One of the creepier type of tale in old German folk tales is when beautiful women are punished for refusing the advances of all the men who try to court her.
Perhaps she has standards, or perhaps she just doesn't have any romantic interest in men in general. It matters not - the folk tale condemns her for being "prideful", and she gets punished for it.
In this particular tale from Styria, the woman is cursed by all the rejected suitors. This causes the Devil to appear in the guise of a huntsman, and he tells her:
"The curses of many men are upon you. Don't continue to act like this, but above all do not look back at me, for else you will turn to stone."
She is initially frightened, but curiosity overcomes her, she looks back, and is then turned to stone as promised.
Really, she did nothing wrong here! It was entirely up to her whether or not to reject the advances of would-be suitors, and the fault lies entirely with the men who cursed her.
Now that Monday has been cast out, here are 2 books to help exorcise other evils. One supposes that "demons" are really aliens and we should seek to communicate, rather than expel them. The other seems to presume that only women can be demon-possessed. Maybe that's why Stephen King's famous fictional Fury was "Christine", instead of Carson.
me: it's absurd that censorship of toplessness is applied only if you "look female," while those who "look male" are allowed to go topless anywhere they like without consequence. Either ban ALL #nipples or NO nipples.
Cis male #nudist / #naturist: yeah full body #nudity (including genitals) should be allowed in public and online
Former editor at Science Fiction World, Chi Hui, reveals bullying, misogyny, stealing of wages and credits, and more at the magazine
Reading Diane Lacey's open letter about the (self-)censorship scandal of the Hugo Awards, the impetus of collusion/slating from Chinese publishers stood out. zionius actually dug further and presented evidence that the guilty party appeared to be Science Fiction World, which was involved in the Worldcon. So I thought I'd type up...