Fat Queer Tells All: On Fatness and Gender Flatness feature image via Shutterstock Before I go out to the party I put on my eyeliner, I make sure to put it on sloppily and with the unsteady hand of someone who doesn’t usually wear eyeliner. I put on my purple tights with runs at the thighs and my worn denim jacket, I strap my messenger bag across the whole mess. I guess I expect whoever it is to be in on the joke that is my femininity, but why is it a joke? I grew up into a fat girl, with hips and a belly that started forming with puberty. I realize today that my relationship to gender has been impacted by the ways that others understand and interpret fat bodies. Here’s the twist: I’m not doing it anymore. I do not know why fatness flattens gender expression, but I think it has to do with the predetermined expectations of bodies. I went to the same monthly queer party twice wearing two different outfits.
3 Words I Wish I'd Heard When My Boyfriend Cheated On Me Neil Gaiman, renaissance man and legendary novelist, once gave the best graduation speech I've ever heard. It was so good that they're making a book of it. Here's my favorite part, which happens to be the one I listen to whenever something awful happens (I wasn't kidding with that headline, people). Did I mention they're making a book of it? Click image to Zoom Love it? Shop Indie Bookstores: Print or eBook A Note About Chris Brown, Rape Culture and Our Ethics The Guardian recently published a story about Chris Brown that included the news that he’d “lost his virginity” to a teenage girl at age eight. He didn’t admit this fact. Rather, it came in the form of bragging—about his virility at age eight, the pornography he watched with his older cousins at age eight, and the way in which “sex” at age eight primed him to be a “beast at it” now. Colorlines.com published an excerpt of this story yesterday to contribute to a continuing conversation on this site about young men, sexual assault and masculinity. It was an overly subtle, incomplete attempt that readers objected to. For example, reader Andrew Bond posted: …As others have noted, this story does nothing productive. I disagree with Bond that this news should become a jumping-off point to talk about the performed misogyny of Brown and Lil’ Wayne, who has also discussed his sexual activity at a young age. The fact that Brown doesn’t seem to know that he was assaulted doesn’t come as a surprise.
In Between Time | Something that I wrote because I woke up sad and everyone seems to hate Amanda Palmer these days "You are all going to die" Joss Whedon's Wesleyan Commencement Speech Ah, but what if its not a computer simulation? What if its the scenario I put above, transferring our essence from clone to clone - each clone containing an echo of the whole that occasionally IS the whole? With the net being the interconnecting structure tying all these "selves" into a coherent being? There's going to be cybernetics. Our world is going to fundamentally change. We will be immortal, not because of a computer or a drug or a God, but because life requires us to be. Rapes in Brazil Spur Class and Gender Debate Mauricio Lima for The New York Times A wave of rapes on public transportation in Rio de Janeiro has led to the creation of women-only cars on trains, but some women say not enough is being done. In yet another case, men abducted and raped a working-class woman in a transit van as it wended through densely populated areas. The police failed to investigate, and a week later the same men raped a 21-year-old American student in the same van, pummeling her face and beating her male companion with a metal bar. “Unfortunately, it had to happen to her before anyone would help me,” said the Brazilian woman raped in the transit van. “I was like, ‘Could this have been avoided if they had paid attention to my case?’ A recent wave of rapes in Rio — some captured on video cameras — have cast a spotlight on the unresolved contradictions of a nation that is coming of age as a world power.
Zombies & Marshmallows Quakers in the World - William Tuke William Tuke was born in York on 24 March 1732, into a leading Quaker family. He entered the family tea and coffee merchant business at an early age. Alongside his commercial responsibilities, he was able to devote much time to the pursuit of philanthropy. When a Quaker died in the squalid and inhumane conditions of the York Asylum, Tuke was invited to visit and was appalled by what he saw there. In the spring of 1792, he appealed to the Society of Friends (as the Quakers were also known) to revolutionise the treatment of the insane. He collected sufficient funds to open the York Retreat for the care of the insane in 1796. William Tuke’s model of care was known as Moral Treatment. William Tuke died in 1822. Samuel's son James Hack Tuke (1819 - 1896) in his turn aided in the management of the York Retreat and later focused on famine relief aid to Ireland.
Egypt's Rape Culture: Most Sexual Assaults Go Unpunished As Cleric Claims Women 'Want To Be Raped' By Andrea Peterson "Egypt’s Rape Culture: Most Sexual Assaults Go Unpunished As Cleric Claims Women ‘Want To Be Raped’" A prominent Egyptian Salafi preacher justified sexual assaults again female protesters, claiming women “are going to Tahrir Square because they want to be raped” in a video posted online Wednesday. The preacher, Ahmad Mahmoud Abdullah (also known as “Abu Islam”) is the owner of a private television channel called “al-Ummah” and has previously been accused of defaming Christianity for comments made to the press and destroying bibles in front of the U.S. embassy. The same day as his comments were posted, women protested against sexual assault in Egypt and Amnesty International released a briefing highlighting sexual violence against female protesters in Egypt, noting: The briefing also reports twenty-five sexual assaults on January 25th alone, including “at least two cases blades were used, including on survivors’ genital areas.”
5 mai un an après Il y a des années qui se suivent et ne se ressemblent pas. L’an dernier, veille du second tour de la Présidentielle, nous manifestions contre l’abrogation du délit de harcèlement sexuel. Aujourd’hui, une marche est organisée pour demander une VIe République. Pour moi, cela ne changerait pas grand chose si demain on changeait de République. 1/ Adapter la société au vieillissement Ainsi, de par mon travail, j’essaie de suivre de près le travail sur une loi d’adaptation de la société au vieillissement. Donc, pour en revenir à la loi sur l’adaptation de la société au vieillissement de la population : on se retrouve face au même défi qu’avec la prise en compte de la place des femmes dans la société, partout et pas seulement au foyer. Un exemple : les voitures, c’est pratique. Donc, est-il vraiment utile, souhaitable et plus humain de s’endetter pour acheter une belle voiture ? En revanche, jamais on n’envisage de s’endetter pour s’assurer que ses enfants seront bien gardés. Like this:
You Mattered, Chris Christopher Peterson died yesterday. We don’t know the details. We’ve just been touched by the shock wave going through a world-wide community that formed around his generous and productive life. Just five days ago, Chris wrote an article in his Positive Psychology Today blog, The Good Life, about the ways he might use the word “awesome.” Along with the 1000 statues of the Buddha at the Sanjūsangen-dō temple in Japan, all looking alike from a distance but different up close, his examples included the Vietnam Memorial and the Virginia Tech Hokie Stones memorial for the people who died in the 2007 shooting. He concludes the article this way: “The sort of awe I am describing is a bit different but incredibly important. Chris was our teacher during the first MAPP program, teaching us how to read and write about research in the first semester and exploring character strengths and virtues in the second semester. In the comments, please add any Chris stories that you are moved to tell.