Why does toilet paper NEED a commercial? Who is not buying toilet paper?
and folks feel the need to jump on and add “black person” or tell me that “women in general” face shit.
NO. I meant BLACK women, specifically. Because I live in a world where
Psychology Today, a fairly well respected mental health publication, publishes a study finding Black women to be the most unattractive women on earth, and not until they received backlash from Black women, did they think the science was faulty
I live in a world where the Black First Lady of this country is constantly having her body and shape mocked, or being framed as a slave.
I live in a world, in which the best female tennis player’s body is mocked by a white woman on the tennis court and the entire audience just laughs.
I live in a world where Gabby Douglas is the first Black girl to win gold in the all-around and the media story makes it about her hair, and then turns around and blames Black women for it.
I live in a world where a white dude on tumblr feels the need to justify finding a Black woman attractive by stating he’s “not into Black girls, but she’s attractive” B/c you know, she was light skinned and curly haired enough to fit his standard of beauty.
I live in a country where Black women make up, at most like 10% of the US population, but we are constantly having articles written about us and why we are so fat. B/c it’s our fat asses that is bringing down the national economy or some shit.
I live in a world where Black men tell me the hair that grows out of my head naturally, ain’t for me.
I live in a world where a Black man can write about hating Black women, and then when Black women respond negatively, we are called angry, bitter, bitches/hoes, etc.
I live in a world where just last week a Black women wrote a post on the shit we as Black women face in relationships, and a white girl comes along an crosses out the word black, talkin’ about she “fixed” it. Erasing our unique experiences.
I live in a world where Black men will throw interracial dating, and marriage statistics in Black women’s faces in order to get us to shut up, and in the same breath claim to “love” Black women.
I live in a world, where a Black woman writes a post on mental health and a bunch of white women saviors feel the need to jump on and tell us exactly what our problem is.
I live in a world where Black daughters are left taking care of their elderly parents, financially, physically, and emotionally, but it’s the Black sons who get praised for making a god damn sandwich.
I live in a world where a Black woman makes a post about a horrific birthing experience of another Black woman, and how she would prefer a home birth, only to be called stupid and ignorant by white people, b/c we are endangering our children.
I live in a world where the face of the “welfare queen” is Black motherhood.
I live in a world where 90% of the people who will defend Black women against these constant attacks are other Black women, and we will get mansplained and whitesplained for our troubles.
So no, I absolutely did not mean “Black person” which usually translates to Black man or “women” which usually translates to “white women”
Don’t change my fucking words.
(via ceedling)
If you’re pretty, you’re an object. If you’re ugly, you’re a worthless object.
We really really really can’t win.
(via thedollydamnllama)
- Don’t assume those you intend to help even wanted your help.
- You are not there to ‘help’ anyone. Help assumes you are in authority and they depend on you.
- You are there to work with people.
- Those people are not charity cases: they are human beings with feelings history and personal identities. Like you. Treat them as such.
- That means stop thinking its so goddamn ’beautiful’ to hold a black child’s hand or ‘inspiring’ when you wear their clothes and practice their customs or ‘amazing’ when you see a person wear western clothes.
really when people say “you’re just as bad as them” when you retaliate in the slightest way or just don’t comply to the demands of a bully, racist, sexist, or homophobe, what they are really saying is “i am a shitty person who wants to justify my alignment with shitty people by making the victim look like a bad person as well”. because when you demonize the victim, its easy to throw around meaningless and incorrect statements like “you’re just as bad”.
If you are part of a privileged group and have to constantly demand that somebody in an oppressed group say “not all (insert privileged group here) are like that”
what you are really demanding is that they reassure you that you’re not like that and you’re not being held accountable
which is a cowardly thing to do and also shows the great lengths you will go to in order to avoid examining your role in a toxic system
damn this is a good post
Last month, a New Jersey middle school banned girls from wearing strapless dresses to prom. Administrators claimed that the dresses were “distracting” — though they refused to specify exactly how or why. Parents reacted strongly to the rule; some supported the dress code while others deemed it “slut-shaming.” On Friday, the school compromised by allowing girls to wear single-strap or see-through-strap dresses.
This is no isolated incident in the United States. Across the country, young girls are being told what not to wear because it might be a “distraction” for boys, or because adults decide it makes them look “inappropriate.” At its core, every incident has a common thread: Putting the onus on young women to prevent from being ogled or objectified, instead of teaching those responsible to learn to respect a woman’s body. Here are five other recent examples:
1. A middle school in California banned tight pants. At the beginning of last month, a middle school in Northern California began telling girls to avoid wearing pants that are “too tight” because it “distracts the boys.” At a mandatory assembly for just the female students, the middle school girls were told that they’re no longer allowed to wear leggings or yoga pants. “We didn’t think it was fair how we have all these restrictions on our clothing while boys didn’t have to sit through [the assembly] at all,” one student told local press. Some parents also complained, leading the school’s assistant principal to record a voicemail explaining the new policy. “The guiding principle in all dress codes is that the manner in which students dress does not become a distraction in the learning environment,” the message said.
2. A high school principal in Minnesota emailed parents to ask them to cover up their daughters. A principal in Minnetonka, MN recently wrote an email telling parents to stop letting their daughters wear leggings or yoga pants to school. He says the tight-fitting pants are fine with longer shirts but, when worn with a shorter top, a girl’s “backside” can be “too closely defined.” The big risk of having a defined backside, he thinks, is that it can “be highly distracting for other students.”
3. Two girls in Ohio were turned away from their prom for being “improperly dressed.” Laneisha Williams and Nyasia Mitchell were barred from prom this spring for wearing dresses that administrators considered “too revealing.” The girls say that they didn’t believe they were violating a dress code that said dresses couldn’t be too short or show too much cleavage. But one administrator told local news that the high school girls were only allowed to wear dresses that had “no curvature of their breasts showing.”
4. A kindergarten student in Georgia was forced to change her “short” skirt because it was a “distraction to other students.” It’s hard to imagine that a kindergartener’s outfit could be “a distraction to other students,” but a mother in Georgia told locals news there that her daughter had been outfitted in someone else’s pants — without parental permission — after the principal deemed the skirt the young girl was wearing too short.” The girl had apparently wore the skirt, and accompanying leggings, just one week before without incident.
5. Forty high school girls were sent home from a winter dance in California after “degrading” clothing inspections “bordering on sexual harassment.” A school board member’s daughter was among the 40 girls turned away from Capistrano Valley High’s February dance for wearing dresses that either exposed their midriffs or were cut too low. Before the dance, girls were apparently required to flap their arms up and down and turn around for male administrators’ inspection. The school issues image guidelines for appropriate dress on its website — though the images were nearly all of women, and the only male image depicted proper attire. One girl alleges that the principal told her, “Not all dresses look good on certain body shapes.” A grandmother of one of the girls who was turned away from the dance also said that a teacher remarked about her granddaughter, “What mother would allow her daughter to wear a dress like that?” Apparently the school did receive some praise, though, from the parents of two male students.
When most Americans think about “rape culture,” they may think about the Steubenville boys’ defense arguing that an unconscious girl consented to her sexual assault because she “didn’t say no,” the school administrators who choose to protect their star athletes over those boys’ rape victims, or the bullying that led multiple victims of sexual assault to take their own lives. While those incidences of victim-blaming are certainly symptoms of a deeply-rooted rape culture in this country, they’re not the only examples of this dynamic at play. Rape culture is also evident in the attitudes that lead school administrators to treat young girls’ bodies as inherently “distracting” to the boys who simply can’t control themselves. That approach to gender roles simply encourages our youth to assume that sexual crimes must have something to do with women’s “suggestive” clothes or behavior, rather than teaching them that every individual is responsible for respecting others’ bodily autonomy.