they seem wild but they are so tame

❝ ‎This year we saw many hilarious performances by women, and many idiotic articles from men about how women suddenly became funny. Yes, imagine how great ‘The Mary Tyler Moore Show’ would have been had Mary, Betty White, Cloris Leachman, and Valerie Harper actually been funny. If only Lucille Ball, Carol Burnett, Gilda Radner, and Julia Louis-Dreyfus had been able to get a laugh. I guess what I’m saying is, this isn’t the year that women finally became funny. This is the year that men finally pulled their heads out of their asses. ❞

Matthew Perry, presenting at the 2012 Comedy Awards  (via rufustfirefly)

(Source: lynnelemon)

❝ Yes, we live in a sexist culture, in which women have no good choices when it comes to our bodies. We live in a sexist culture in which women are valued primarily as sexual objects, and at the same time are shamed for our sexuality. It seems to me that we have two choices as to how to respond to this. We can try to navigate the narrow, essentially impossible shoals of these contradictory expectations, and try to find that perfect, socially acceptable line between slut and prude.

Or we can say, “Fuck it. There is no way I can win — so I’m going to do whatever the fuck I want. I’m going to wear overalls, or I’m going to wear high heels. I’m going to have sex with twenty strangers in a night, or I’m not going to have sex with anyone. I’m going to dress conservatively and professionally in public at all times, or I’m going to sell naked pictures of myself on the Internet if I bloody well feel like it.”

And in saying, “I can’t win, so I’m going to do whatever the fuck I want to do,” we can create the beginnings of a victory. We can create the beginnings of a world where we really can win. We can create the beginnings of a world where we’re a little more free than the women who came before us… and where the women who come after us are a little more free than we are. We probably can’t create a perfect world, where women’s bodies aren’t commodified in the slightest (not in this generation, anyway). But we can create a better world: a world where women’s bodies and minds belong less to the patriarchy, and more to ourselves. ❞

Greta Christina (What I May Do With My Naked Body: A Reply to Azar Majedi About the #NudePhotoRevolutionaries Calendar)

❝ You know what would help? Seeing someone on TV who has a butt like mine and is the smart, classy, desirable character and not the goofy friend. Reading a profile of a female C-level executive that doesn’t mention her hair. Reading blog posts by women at tech or sci-fi conventions that don’t make a single mention of sexual harassment. Seeing a female comic book character who actually gets to wear armor on the parts of her that need armoring. Never again hearing the word “anorexic” if it’s not referring to an actual medical condition. Never again seeing thong underwear sold in the children’s department. Putting on a short skirt on a hot day and walking outside confident that I won’t have to suffer any abusive commentary. And then going to a feminist blog to read about body image without worrying that some random guy is going to backhandedly criticize my body because in his unsolicited opinion, my breasts are just too big to be attractive. ❞

Why “I prefer small boobs” isn’t helping (via sociolab)

Nothing is more annoying than reading or commenting online about body image issues and having a guy wander in and proclaim that he finds all kinds of women attractive and we don’t even need to wear makeup anyway.  (via feminist-submissive)

“A queen loses her crown when she loses her virginity. And a queen becomes the bitch when she likes it.”

(Source: babybutta)

❝ There are the occasions that men—intellectual men, clever men, engaged men—insist on playing devil’s advocate, desirous of a debate on some aspect of feminist theory or reproductive rights or some other subject generally filed under the heading: Women’s Issues. These intellectual, clever, engaged men want to endlessly probe my argument for weaknesses, want to wrestle over details, want to argue just for fun—and they wonder, these intellectual, clever, engaged men, why my voice keeps raising and why my face is flushed and why, after an hour of fighting my corner, hot tears burn the corners of my eyes. Why do you have to take this stuff so personally? ask the intellectual, clever, and engaged men, who have never considered that the content of the abstract exercise that’s so much fun for them is the stuff of my life. ❞

Melissa McEwan, of course, on the terrible bargain.

(Source: sanitywatchers)

❝ Education is the most important thing for women to pursue aggressively as they continue their fight to be recognised for what they are: dynamic, vital, biologically heroic people. Men and women are the two wings of humanity’s bird, or perhaps pterodactyl. (I offer the pterodactyl as a metaphor because humankind is often terrifying, as demonstrated by this discussion’s necessity.) If the wings aren’t equally strong, the pterodactyl flies in circles, gets angry, slams into a tree and explodes. (Look it up.) Education is what’s most important, because it isn’t an opinion that women should have equal rights to men in every possible way; it’s a fact. Its acknowledgement is an indispensable ingredient in the recipe for the survival of our species. And facts are much easier to identify when you have an education, which is something that remains out of reach to this day for many millions of women around the world. Women outnumber men on our planet. And women create life inside their bodies. Yet misogyny and sexism, whose twin engines are fear and ignorance, continue to exist. We must deprive them of their fuel and that begins by educating women and men. The good news is that women and men start out as girls and boys, who are more fun to be around. So take heart in how the most powerful political act you might ever commit is to read to a child. And kids love pterodactyls, so try to find a book about them. ❞

Rob Delaney. New Statesman - The meaning of the F-word: Education (via chocolateinthelibrary)

❝ True gender equality is actually perceived as inequality. A group that is made up of 50% women is perceived as being mostly women. A situation that is perfectly equal between men and women is perceived as being biased in favor of women.
And if you don’t believe me, you’ve never been a married woman who kept her family name. I have had students hold that up as proof of my “sexism.”
My own brother told me that he could never marry a woman who kept her name because “everyone would know who ruled that relationship.” Perfect equality – my husband keeps his name and I keep mine – is held as a statement of superiority on my part. ❞

- Lucy, When Worlds Collide: Fandom and Male Privilege. (via seaofbadstories)

I might have reblogged this already but it’s so good I don’t care.

(via stfufauxminists)

Kyriarchy in action.

(via transstingray)

Also the study where they had women and men talking in a discussion and when women spoke around 30% of the time, men perceived them as dominating the discussion. They didn’t consider it “equal” until something like 5-10% of women talking.

(via dumbthingswhitepplsay)

Voila. A beautiful example of why fighting for equality becomes a gross exaggeration in the eyes of the oppressors.

(via curiouslycool)

(Source: swimmingtrunks)

❝ Men have called me a man-hater, a feminazi, frigid, a bitch… but in my mind it always translates to, “you don’t need me to validate your existence, and that scares me. ❞

Heartless Bitches International

(Source: lazyarn)

❝ We need to reclaim the word ‘feminism’. We need the word ‘feminism’ back real bad. When statistics come in saying that only 29% of American women would describe themselves as feminist - and only 42% of British women - I used to think, What do you think feminism IS, ladies? What part of ‘liberation for women’ is not for you? Is it freedom to vote? The right not to be owned by the man you marry? The campaign for equal pay? ‘Vogue’ by Madonna? Jeans? Did all that good shit GET ON YOUR NERVES? Or were you just DRUNK AT THE TIME OF THE SURVEY? ❞

Caitlin Moran (via revolutionfordisplay)

❝

We need to reclaim the word ‘feminism’. We need the word ‘feminism’ back real bad. When statistics come in saying that only 29 per cent of American women would describe themselves as feminist - and only 42 per cent of British women - I used to think, What do you think feminism IS, ladies? What part of ‘liberation for women’ is not for you? Is it freedom to vote? The right not to be owned by the man you marry? The campaign for equal pay? ‘Vogue’, by Madonna? Jeans? Did all that good shit GET ON YOUR NERVES? Or were you just DRUNK AT THE TIME OF THE SURVEY?

These days, however, I am much calmer - since I realised that it’s technically impossible for a woman to argue against feminism. Without feminism, you wouldn’t be allowed to have a debate on women’s place in society. You’d be too busy giving birth on the kitchen floor - biting down on a wooden spoon, so as not to disturb the men’s card game - before going back to quick-liming the dunny. This is why those female columnists in the Daily Mail - giving daily wail against feminism - amuse me. They paid you £1,600 for that, dear, I think. And I bet it’s going in your bank account, and not your husband’s. The more women argue loudly, against feminism, the more they both prove it exists and that they enjoy its hard-won privileges.

How To Be a Woman, Caitlin Moran

(Source: petitefeministe)