big fat feminist

@JoseCanseco tweeting personal information of woman he may have raped, encouraging fans to harass her.

Wed, 22 May 2013 14:32:45 -0400

@JoseCanseco tweeting personal information of woman he may have raped, encouraging fans to harass her.:

themilitantbaker: May 19, 2013 Mike Jeffriesc/o Abercrombie...

Tue, 21 May 2013 22:00:56 -0400

May 19, 2013

Mike Jeffries
c/o Abercrombie & Fitch
Abercrombie & Fitch Campus
6301 Fitch Path
New Albany, Ohio 43054

Hey Mike,

I know you’ve been flooded with mail regarding your comments on sizeism, but I wanted to take a second to write you about a project I’ve been working on.

As a preface: Your opinion isn’t shocking; millions share the same sentiment. You’ve used your wealth and public platform to echo what many already say. However, it’s important you know that regardless of the numbers on your tax forms, your comments don’t stop anyone from being who they are; the world is progressing in inclusive ways whether you deem it cool or not. The only thing you’ve done through your comments (about thin being beautiful and only offering XL and XXL in your stores for men) is reinforced the unoriginal concept that fat women are social failures, valueless, and undesirable. Your apology doesn’t change this.

But oddly enough, that’s not all you have done. You have also created an incredible opportunity for social change.

Never in our culture do we see sexy photo shoots with short, fat, unconventional models paired with not short, not fat, professional models. To put it in your words: “unpopular kids” with “cool kids”. It’s socially acceptable for same to be paired with same, but never are contrasting bodies positively mixed in the world of advertisement. The juxtaposition of uncommonly paired bodies is visually jarring, and, even though I wish it didn’t, it causes viewers to feel uncomfortable. This is largely attributed to companies like yours that perpetuate the thought that fat women are not beautiful. This is inaccurate, but if someone were to look through your infamous catalog, they wouldn’t believe me.

I’ve enclosed some images for your consideration. Please let me know what you think.

A note: I didn’t take these pictures to show that the male model found me attractive, or the photographer found me photogenic, or to prove that you’re an ostentatious dick. Rather, I was inspired by the opportunity to show that I am secure in my skin and to flaunt this by using the controversial platform that you created. I challenge the separation of attractive and fat, and I assert that they are compatible regardless of what you believe. Not only do I know that I’m sexy, but I also have the confidence to pose nude in ways you don’t dare. You’re are more than welcome to prove me wrong by posing shirtless with a hot fat chick; it would thrill me to see such a shoot.

I’m sure you didn’t intend for this to be the outcome, but in many ways you are kind of brilliant. Not only are you a marketing genius (brand exclusivity really is a profitable move) but you also accidentally created an opportunity to challenge our current social construct. My hope is that the combination of these contrasting bodies will someday be as ubiquitous as the socially accepted ideal.

Ever so sincerely,
Jes

P.S. If you would like to offer me a “substantial amount” to stop wearing your brand so my association won’t “cause significant damage to your image”, don’t hesitate to email me. I respect you as a business man, and my agent and I would be happy to contribute in furthering your established success.

P.P.S. You should know your Large t-shirt comfortably fits a size 22. You might want to work on that.

simplynadeen: Whaddupp!! Ainee is the FIRST Hijabi to be...

Mon, 20 May 2013 16:12:55 -0400

simplynadeen:

Whaddupp!!
Ainee is the FIRST Hijabi to be featured in Seventeen magazine.

She’s working “with Gucci, Beyonce for her campaign, Chime for Change and Seventeen Magazine to unite and strengthen the voices speaking out for girls and women around the world”.

Why Do Men Keep Putting Me in the Girlfriend-Zone?

Mon, 20 May 2013 09:54:26 -0400

literaryreference:

You know how it is, right, ladies? You know a guy for a while. You hang out with him. You do fun things with him—play video games, watch movies, go hiking, go to concerts. You invite him to your parties. You listen to his problems. You do all this because you think he wants to be your friend.

But then, then comes the fateful moment where you find out that all this time, he’s only seen you as a potential girlfriend. And then if you turn him down, he may never speak to you again. This has happened to me time after time: I hit it off with a guy, and, for all that I’ve been burned in the past, I start to think that this one might actually care about me as a person. And then he asks me on a date.

I tell him how much I enjoy his company, how much I value his friendship. I tell him that I really want to be his friend and to continue hanging out with him and talking about our favorite books or exploring new restaurants or making fun of avant-garde theatre productions. But he rejects me. He doesn’t answer my calls or e-mails; if we’d been making plans to do something before this fateful incident, these plans mysteriously fail to materialize. (This is why I never did get around to seeing the Hunger Games movie. Not to name any names, but thanks a lot, Tom.) Later, when I run into him at social events, our conversations are awkward and lukewarm. This is because the moment we met, he put me in the girlfriend-zone, and now he can’t see me as friend material.

I must say that I find this really unfair. I mean, I’m a nice girl. I have a lot to offer as a friend, like not being a douchebag and stuff. But males just don’t want to be friends with nice girls like me. They can’t help it, I guess; it’s just how they’re wired, biologically. Evolution conditioned our male hominid ancestors to seek nice girls as mates and form friendship bonds only with the other dudes that they hunted mammoths with. It’s true—I know this because I studied hominids in my fifth-grade science class.

So what’s the answer? Should I take up mammoth-hunting in an attempt to appeal to the friendship centers of men’s primal lizardbrains? Should I keep making guy “friends” and then prevent them from making a move on me by subtly undermining their self-confidence? Should I just give up on those manipulative, game-playing, two-faced bastards once and for all? I don’t know. I mean, I’d really like to have a true friendship with a guy someday, but it’s so hard to trust and respect them when they never say what they mean—and you never know when you might be relegated to the girlfriend-zone.

satyacake: Brooklyn Bruja // Sirena Spring Photographer: Andrea...

Fri, 17 May 2013 18:28:54 -0400

satyacake:

Brooklyn Bruja // Sirena Spring

Photographer: Andrea Smalls www.andreasmalls.carbonmade.com

deafmuslimpunx: hinduthug: Vidya Balan at Jeune &...

Fri, 17 May 2013 15:43:14 -0400

deafmuslimpunx:

hinduthug:

Vidya Balan at Jeune & Jolie premiere at Cannes Film Festival, 2013

A real beauty, a great actress, and a proud Indian woman!!! <333

nataliemeansnice: ceepers: gabifresh: AHHHHH! My swim...

Fri, 17 May 2013 09:27:42 -0400

nataliemeansnice:

ceepers:

gabifresh:

AHHHHH! My swim collection is AVAILABLE NOW! BUY IT HERE!
go to gabifresh.com for more pics and important info about sizing/fit before buying!

Need. Galaxy print suit and coverup.

reblogging again because i may or may not have juuuuuuuust made a very financially irresponsible decision that i will absolutely regret (in my bank account, not on my body) and nabbed the high waisted galaxy fatkini that gabi is wearing! i’ve been waiting and waiting for this to release and seeing how this is blowing up, i didn’t want it to sell out in my size.

also - there’s a coupon code on the site, 10SHIP that gave free shipping plus 10% off the order - bringing it with tax, shipping, and all to about 66 doll hairs. save some bucks if you’re gonna order it! :)

i. cannot. wait! i really hope it looks nice on me!

the galaxy suit is on backorder! I just got the notification :( however, you can also use MAY1 for 25% off!

jeanvaljeanralphio: The next time you feel down, just remember that Bruce Banner tried to kill...

Fri, 17 May 2013 00:44:18 -0400

jeanvaljeanralphio:

The next time you feel down, just remember that Bruce Banner tried to kill himself and Tony Stark has anxiety attacks, and they’ve both saved the world. You will be okay.

"i’m sorry, but that’s just the way it is"

Thu, 16 May 2013 20:13:36 -0400

“i’m sorry, but that’s just the way it is”

- people who benefit from the way it is and does not want to change it anytime soon and aren’t sorry at all (via lovethyfatness)

tummyproject: Two tummies! /submit ♥

Wed, 15 May 2013 21:33:28 -0400

tummyproject:

Two tummies!

/submit ♥

panasonicyouth: africanfashion: For those of you who criticize...

Wed, 15 May 2013 17:42:55 -0400

panasonicyouth:

africanfashion:

For those of you who criticize Janelle’s signature monochromatic look.

From her speech on “Black Girls Rock”:

“When I started my music career, I was a maid. I used to clean houses. My mother was a proud janitor. My stepfather, who raised me like his very own, worked at the post office and my father was a trashman. They all wore uniforms and that’s why I stand here today, in my black and white, and I wear my uniform to honor them.

This is a reminder that I have work to do. I have people to uplift. I have people to inspire. And today, I wear my uniform proudly as a Cover Girl. I want to be clear, young girls, I didn’t have to change who I was to become a Cover Girl. I didn’t have to become perfect because I’ve learned throughout my journey that perfection is the enemy of greatness.

Embrace what makes you unique, even if it makes others uncomfortable.” - Janelle Monáe

janelle

janelle

i love u

ceepers: gabifresh: AHHHHH! My swim collection is AVAILABLE...

Wed, 15 May 2013 10:56:56 -0400

ceepers:

gabifresh:

AHHHHH! My swim collection is AVAILABLE NOW! BUY IT HERE!
go to gabifresh.com for more pics and important info about sizing/fit before buying!

Need. Galaxy print suit and coverup.

Escher Girls: Clothes I'm forced to wear in the majority of MMORPGS

Wed, 15 May 2013 09:02:56 -0400

Escher Girls: Clothes I'm forced to wear in the majority of MMORPGS:

eschergirls:

repair-her-armor:

[Please take note that the commentary is just for fun. Bunch of sarcasm. Don’t take it too seriously. I am getting tired of these outfits, though.]

1. The classic Bikini Armor. If you’re lucky you might get an actual shoulder-pad! If the designers even bother doing something more than just a regular bikini, you might get some accessories with stilettos! Exactly what I want in battle. For a extra nice touch; cameltoe.

2. The Lingerie ”Armor”. There’s absolutely nothing that protects you, but it looks really uncomfortable and nice in ~~bed~~ battle! Complete with some feathery, useless shoulder pads!

3. The ever so Stylish Swimsuit! This is usually the armor you get before you get the upgrade Bikini Armor. Bonus points if a choker, thigh-high boots/stockings and a half mask is included!

4. The Abstract Art. Yes, we’re all wondering how the hell that works; how does that thing stay on, how does she walk with those shoes, how on earth is that supposed to protect her and why is half of her naked? All those questions is a part of the costume! They say art say more than thousand words.. or something!

5. The Dominatrix and/or Slave outfit! For those kinky players out there! Complete with leather or latex, fishnets, chains, chokers and whips! Bonus points of the stilettos are sky-high!

6. The Stereotype Shaman or Barbarian! Because she’s clearly so wild and ~exotic~ that she doesn’t need clothes! Best worn with tiny loincloth and underboob-straps!

7. The Cute Frilly Dress! Something you’d LOVE to wear, CONSTANTLY…. in battle! Usually the female “robe” costume, but hey, robes doesn’t show her nice legs! ): For absolute effect, add garterbelts.

8. I call this the Why?. Everything is so massive and made of thick material, but we wouldn’t want to cover her girly parts now, would we? Clearly NO ONE would be aiming there!

9. Nature Thing Something. If you’re not of human race and belong to the nature, expect your outfit to look something like this! Feel completely ~~exposed~~ free! I didn’t even bother with this one, but clearly they don’t even do that in games either. But since you’re not human, it’s totally okay!

10. This is best known as “Just In Case You Forgot”. Have a decent looking outfit, but then they suddenly cut obvious holes around your privates, just reminding you that you have breasts, a butt and a vagina! How nice of them! Bonus if you don’t have a boob-hole, but instead boob-chest-plate!

11. The Everyday Archer! A very classic outfit, complete with a corset and a mini-skirt! Don’t forget the cape, but heavens forbid that you wear it longer than your hips! Then we wouldn’t be able to see your nice butt or legs from behind! *sad face*

12. The Creative Healer! She isn’t supposed to be in close-combat, and sometimes doesn’t even use weapons other than a staff, so minimal armor is understandable… that’s why we give you a dress that leaves you wondering how that thing stays on, and with a leg-slip-thing! We wouldn’t want you to forget you have legs, after all!

13. And finally, your Average Sci-Fi chick! This one is an absolute classic. It has weird cut-outs everywhere, extreme cleavage, patterns pointing to your crotch and chest, and CRAZY shoes! Don’t forget the skin tight, often nearly-transparent, glossy fabric. Perfect battle wear, absolutely perfect!

On the bright side, you never have to worry about being too hot! >_> And you save a bundle on fabric!

"Black women do not fare well in the porn industry because the “plum” jobs for porn performers-the..."

Wed, 15 May 2013 08:57:49 -0400

“Black women do not fare well in the porn industry because the “plum” jobs for porn performers-the contract employment with the two major porn-feature studios, Vivid and Wicked-are reserved mainly for white women. These studios, with their chic image, sophisticated marketing practices, and guarantee of regular work, afford their contract women an income and level of visibility that makes them the envy of the industry. (Jenna Jameson, of course, is held up as the quintessential example of just how far a contract porn star can go.) With surgically enhanced bodies, perfectly coiffed hair, and glamorous makeup, these women act as PR agents for the porn industry, showing up regularly on Howard Stern, E! Entertainment, or in the pages of Maxim. As the porn industry increasingly wiggles its way into pop culture, it is no surprise that it uses mainly white women as the “acceptable” face of porn; their all-American-girl looks seamlessly mesh with the blonde, blue-eyed images that grace screens, celebrity magazines, and billboards across North America.

In porn, women of color are generally relegated to gonzo, a genre that has little glamour, security, or chic status. Here women have few fan club Web sites, do not make it to pop culture, and have to endure body-punishing sex. But while the sex acts are typical gonzo, the way the written text frames the sex is unique as it racializes the bodies and sexual behavior of the performer. In all-white porn, no one ever refers to the man’s penis as “a white cock” or the woman’s vagina as “white pussy,” but introduce a person of color, and suddenly all players have a racialized sexuality, where the race of the performer(s) is described in ways that make women a little “sluttier” and the men more hypermasculinized.

It is this harnessing of gender to race that makes women of color a particularly useful group to exploit in gonzo porn, since gonzo porn works only to the degree that the women in it are debased and dehumanized. As a woman of color, the porn performer embodies two subordinate categories, such as Asian fuckbucket, black ho, or Latina slut. All past and present racist stereotypes are dredged up and thrown in her face while she is being orally, anally, and vaginally penetrated by any number of men. When men (irrespective of race) ejaculate on her face and body, they often make reference to her skin color, and her debased status as a woman is seamlessly melded with, and reinforced by, her supposed debased status as a person of color. In the process, her race and gender become inseparable and her body carries the status of dual subordination.”

- Gail Dines, Pornland: How Porn Has Hijacked Our Sexuality (via wretchedoftheearth)

Photo

Tue, 14 May 2013 22:13:31 -0400

Special Guest Edition: The Hawkeye Initiative IRL!

Tue, 14 May 2013 18:02:27 -0400

thehawkeyeinitiative:

I recently received an email from an anonymous fan sharing how she pulled a Hawkeye Initiative themed prank on her CEO to illustrate a problem with some artwork.
My personal compliments to her and her accomplice on a mission well done; they perfectly took they perfectly took the concept of The Hawkeye Initiative one step farther, and effected actual change. I hope this gives you as much of a laugh as it did me (the artwork is currently my desktop), and inspires you to be unafraid to stand up and take action in your own awesome way.

Now, excuse me while I go play my new favorite mech game. :)
-Skjaldmeyja

AnonymousFan8675309:

I work with an all-female team of data scientists, in the gaming industry. This makes me the professional equivalent of Amelia Earhart riding the Loch Ness Monster.

I love my job. Our company in particular is great. Firstly, our game (HAWKEN) is beautiful and people love it. Secondly, half of our executive branch is female. Half of them are punk rock, and all of them are badassed. Our gender awareness standards, compared to the industry at large, are top shelf. We are talking Amelia Earhart in Atlantis, at a five star resort, getting a mani-pedi from Jensen Ackles. I have it good.

For the last six months of my tenure at Meteor Entertainment, there has been only one thing I did not love about my job. This
picture:

Our CEO loves this picture. It is to all appearances his favorite piece of comic art for the game. He had it blown up poster-sized, framed, and displayed on the out-facing wall of his office. There, it looms over the front room like a ship’s figurehead. It is the first thing workers and visitors see when they enter the building and the last thing they see when they leave. This little lady’s undermeats have been the open- and close- parens to my work world for the last six months.
I loathe this picture.

Why do I loathe it? How, you ask, can I stay mad at a sweet young belle who has so obviously taken a break from her important welding to offer me a piping hot cup of coffee and/or a vigorous hand job? (And probably, given her apparent safety consciousness, simultaneously?) If you don’t already know the answer, you might want to check out things like #1ReasonWhy, and the Bechdel Test, and also this, and this, and this and this, and all these other things. (And while we’re talking you should check out this other bullshit right here.)

So at our office holiday party, while our CEO was having everyone in the company sign it, I stand there grinding my teeth into tiny shards. Until, suddenly, it came to me: a vision.

And so it came to be that I approached Sam Kirk, a wickedly funny co-worker who shared my sentiment. Sam, turns out, is a very talented artist who can be bribed-slash-inspired using a medley of feminist indignation, hysterical giggling, and two $90 bottles of añejo tequila.

A month-and-a-half later, our vision was a reality. I give you:
Bro-sie The Riveter.

I want to make it completely clear that everything in this prank that required actual talent was done by Sam. Find this, and more of Sam’s art, at TheRealSamKirk.com.

We blew (ahem) Brosie up poster sized. We framed him. And then, at 7:30 on Monday, April 1st, we snuck into our CEO’s office and switched them.

I stood in the entryway, dizzy with joy. It was glorious. There Brosie stood, proud, nipples testing the air like young gophers in springtime, the post-apocalyptic breeze gently swaying his banana hammock. Brosie said, loud and proud: “Get ready, world! I am here to lubricate your joints and tighten your socket.”

I basically spend the next few hours having a joy-induced neurological episode.

As the morning progressed, Brosie (ahem) revealed himself to our co-workers. The air resounded with startled, suppressed gargles of mingled joy and horror. Some take pictures. Some instantly turn and flee. Several men blush and grin in vindicated solidarity. Several women ask us for prints. At this point I am in total rapture. This is the moment I have been dreaming about for six months.

Yet somehow everyone in the office manages to keep quiet about it. Until, finally, our CEO arrives.

We hear a loud: “What the hell is this?!” And then all goes quiet. Ten minutes pass. We panic.

We are both suddenly and painfully aware that we have, in fact, just punked the CEO of our company. He is by all accounts an awesome dude. He is also a late-50s ex-army guy who happens to determine our employment futures in an at-will state. Meep.

Twenty more minutes pass. And then our CEO comes up to my desk, taps me on the shoulder, and says this:

“That was a brilliant prank. You called me on exactly the bullshit I need to be called on. I put up pictures of half-naked girls around the office all the time and I never think about it. I’m taking you and Sam to lunch. And after that, we’re going to hang both prints, side by side.”

Ruby Underboob and Brosie the Riveter, together at last

Yeah. That happened.

This wonderful experience has taught me two things that I hope to carry with me for the rest of my career in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) and in gaming. It taught me this:

Lots of men (like Sam) are already sympathetic to the stupid, constant crap women put up with in gaming/STEM, and they are ready and willing to call that crap onto the carpet.

And, most importantly, many of the guys who are behind that stupid, constant crap are totally decent, open-minded human beings who just don’t realize they’re doing it. You know how sometimes you don’t realize how much you and your girlfriend are talking about shoes or menstruation until some dude walks into the room? Well sometimes guys don’t realize how much they’re talking about titties.

We just haven’t been around enough for them to notice.

There is only one solution to that, ladies. Bust out your baby-Gap tee and your protective welding goggles, and let’s turn this damn industry into the environment we want it to be. It’s hard work, and yes, there are a couple genuine assholes along the way. But if Ruby Underboob can brave the occasional droplet of molten metal, so can we.

Speaking from experience, it’s worth it.

—K2

About our CEO, Mark Long:

Mark has a long and storied history with, among other things, research, games and comic art. He’s a partner in the RoqlaRue gallery in Seattle, representing “chick art.” Mark considers himself a feminist activist. He is proud to have created a graphic novel trilogy with Nick Sagan (Carl’s son) that features a female hero so strong, Hillary Swank is attached to star as her.

Mark and I are now in an open dialogue about gender in comics and gaming.

graceebooks: men at large feel like they are being robbed of something when an attractive woman...

Tue, 14 May 2013 17:37:19 -0400

graceebooks:

men at large feel like they are being robbed of something when an attractive woman with a 90% chance of developing breast cancer gets a double mastectomy

what better illustration of the male sense of sexual entitlement do you need

The Commencement Address

Tue, 14 May 2013 11:38:56 -0400

fishingboatproceeds:

Some people have asked to read the commencement address I delivered this morning to the 2013 graduates of Butler University. So here it is.

My own commencement speaker, who shall remain nameless, began with a lame joke about how these speeches only come in two varieties: Short and bad. This raised my expectations, and then he went onto speak for 26 minutes, so I’m just going to tell you now: 12 minutes flat, 11:45 if you don’t laugh.

Congratulations to all of you here today, and I do mean all of you—parents, families, friends, professors, coaches. Every single person in Hinkle today has given something to make this moment possible for the class of 2013—well, except for me. I really just showed up and put on the robe.

But special congratulations to you graduates. Before we get to the Life Advice You’ll Soon Forget portion of the program, I want to engage in a time-honored tradition of American commencement addresses: Stealing from other commencement addresses, in this case one by the children’s television host Fred Rogers. Think, if you will, of some of the people who helped get you to today, people who’ve loved you and without whose care and generosity you might not have found yourself here, graduating from Butler, or watching someone you love graduate, or seeing your students graduate. Think for one minute of those who have loved you up into this day. I’ll keep the time.

(1 minute of silence)

Those people are so proud of you today.

We will return to those people soon, but first I have to deliver terrible news, which is that you are all going to die. This is another time-honored tradition of American celebration, the Raining on the Parade. I remember when I got married, the priest devoted most of his homily to telling me how challenging and laborious marriage would be, and I kept thinking, “Well, sure, but can’t we talk about that, like, TOMORROW?” But no, it simply cannot wait. You are going to die. Also everything you ever make and think and experience will be washed away by the sands of time, and the Sun will blow up and no one will remember Cleopatra ruling Egypt or Crick and Watson untangling the structure of DNA or Ptolemy fathoming the stars or even that improbably wonderful Gonzaga game.

So that’s unfortunate.

But I would argue that it’s good to be aware of temporariness when you are thinking about what you want to do with your life. The whole idea of this commencement speech is that I’m supposed to offer you some thoughts on how you might live a good life out there in the so-called Real World, which by the way I assure you is no more or less real than the one in which you have so far found yourselves. But I can’t give any advice about how to live a good life unless and until we establish what constitutes a good life. Of course, that’s much of what you’ve been up to for the past four years, and I’m not going to swoop in here at the end with any interesting revelations. I would just note that the default assumption is that the point of human life is to be as successful as possible, to acquire lots of fame or glory or money as defined by quantifiable metrics: number of twitter followers, or facebook friends, or dollars in one’s 401k.

This is the hero’s journey, right? The hero starts out with no money and ends up with a lot of it, or starts out an ugly duckling and becomes a beautiful swan, or starts out an awwkard girl and becomes a vampire mother, or grows up an orphan living under the staircase and then becomes the wizard who saves the world. We are taught that the hero’s journey is the journey from weakness to strength. But I am here today to tell you that those stories are wrong. The real hero’s journey is the journey from strength to weakness.

And here is the good news nested inside the bad: Many of you, most of you, are about to make that journey. You will go from being the best-informed, most engaged students at one of the finest universities around to being the person who brings coffee to people, or a Steak n Shake waiter, as I once was. Whether you’re a basketball player or a pharmacist or a software designer, you’re about to be a rookie. Your parents’ long-asked questions—what exactly does one DO with a degree in anthropology—will become a matter of sudden and profound relevance. Your student loans will come due and you will need a very good answer for why exactly you went to college, which answer you will have a hard time coming by as you sit at your job, provided you are lucky enough to find a job, and suffer the indignity of people calling you by the wrong name or, if you are forced to wear a name tag, people calling you by the right name too often.

That is the true hero’s errand—strength to weakness. And because you went to college, you will be more alive to the experience, better able to contextualize it and maybe even find the joy and wonder hidden amid the dehumanizing drudgery. For example, when I was a data entry professional, I would often call to mind William Faulkner’s brilliant letter of resignation from the United States Postal Service, which went:

As long as I live under the capitalistic system, I expect to have my life influenced by the demands of moneyed people. But I will be damned if I propose to be at the beck and call of every itinerant scoundrel who has two cents to invest in a postage stamp. This, sir, is my resignation. William Faulkner.

Having read that letter in a Faulkner biography in college had nothing to do with my job typing numbers into a database, but it was still profoundly useful to me. Education provides context and comfort and access, no matter the relationship between your field of study and your post-collegiate life.

But still, you are probably going to be a nobody for a while. You are going to make that journey from strength to weakness, and while it won’t be an easy trip, it is a heroic one. For in learning how to be a nobody, you will learn how not to be a jerk. And for the rest of your life, if you are able to remember your hero’s journey from college grad to underling, you will be less of a jerk. You will tip well. You will empathize. You will be a mentor, and a generous one. In short, you will become like the people you imagined in silence a few minutes ago.

Let me submit to you that this is the actual definition of a good life. You want to be the kind of person who other people—people who may not even born yet—will think about in their own silences years from now at their own commencements. I am going to hazard a guess that relatively few of us closed our eyes and thought of all the work and love that Selena Gomez or Justin Bieber put into making this moment possible for us. We may be taught that the people to admire and emulate are actors and musicians and sports heroes and professionally famous people, but when we look at the people who have helped us, the people who actually change actual lives, relatively few of them are publicly celebrated. We do not think of the money they had, but of their generosity. We do not think of how beautiful or powerful they were, but how willing they were to sacrifice for us—so willing, at times, that we might not have even noticed that they were making sacrifices.

So with that in mind, I’d like to share a few pieces of what I believe to be rock solid advice about proper adulthood or whatever:

First, do not worry too much about your lawn. You will soon find if you haven’t already that almost every adult American devotes tremendous time and money to the maintenance of an invasive plant species called turf grass that we can’t eat. I encourage you to choose better obsessions.

Also, you may have heard that it is better to burn out than it is to fade away. That is ridiculous. It is much better to fade away. Always. Fade. Away.

Keep reading. Specifically, read my books, ideally in hardcover. But also keep reading other books. You have probably figured out by now that education is not really about grades or getting a job; it’s primarily about becoming a more aware and engaged observer of the universe. If that ends with college, you’re rather wasting your one and only known chance at consciousness.

Also a word about the Internet: Old people like myself are terrified by their ignorance of it, which you can and should use to your advantage by saying things at your job like, “You don’t have a tumblr? Oh you should really have a tumblr. I can set you up with that.”

Try not to worry so much about what you are going to do with your life. You are already doing what you are going to do with your life, and judging by your gownedness, you’re doing all right.

On that topic, there are many more jobs out there than you have ever heard of. Your dream job might not yet exist. If you had told College Me that I would become a professional YouTuber, I would’ve been like, “That is not a word, and it never should be.”

And lastly, be vigilant in the struggle toward empathy. A couple years after I graduated from college, I was living in an apartment in Chicago with four friends, one of whom was this Kuwaiti guy named Hassan, and when the U.S. invaded Iraq, Hassan lost touch with his family, who lived on the border, for six weeks. He responded to this stress by watching cable news coverage of the war 24 hours a day. So the only way to hang out with Hassan was to sit on the couch with him, and so one day we were watching the news and the anchor was like, “We’re getting new footage from the city of Baghdad,” and a camera panned across a house that had a huge hole in one wall covered by a piece of plywood. On the plywood was Arabic graffiti scrawled in black spraypaint, and as the news anchor talked about the anger on the Arab street or whatever, Hassan started laughing for the first time in several weeks.

“What’s so funny?” I asked him.

“The graffiti,” he said.

“What’s funny about it?”

“It says, Happy Birthday, Sir, Despite the Circumstances.”

For the rest of your life, you are going to have a choice about how to read graffiti in a language you do not know, and you will have a choice about how to read the actions and intonations of the people you meet. I would encourage you as often as possible to consider the Happy Birthday Sir Despite the Circumstances possibility, the possibility that the lives and experiences of others are as complex and unpredictable as your own, that other people—be they family or strangers, near or far—are not simply one thing or the other—not simply good or evil or wise or ignorant—but that they like you contain multitudes, to borrow a phrase from the great Walt Whitman.

This is difficult to do—it is difficult to remember that people with lives different and distant from your own even celebrate birthdays, let alone with gifts of graffitied plywood. You will always be stuck inside of your body, with your consciousness, seeing through the world through your own eyes, but the gift and challenge of your education is to see others as they see themselves, to grapple with this mean and crazy and beautiful world in all its baffling complexity. We haven’t left you with the easiest path, I know, but I have every confidence in you, and I wish you a very happy graduation, despite the circumstances.

"Indeed, the idea of ‘winning the girl’ – of overcoming female objections or resistance through..."

Tue, 14 May 2013 09:59:01 -0400

“Indeed, the idea of ‘winning the girl’ – of overcoming female objections or resistance through repeated and frequently escalating efforts – is central to most of our modern romantic narratives. (Female persistence, by contrast, is viewed as pathetic.) And the more I think about instances of creepiness, harassment and stalking that culminate in either the threat or actuality of sexual assault, the more I’m convinced that a massive part of the problem is this socially sanctioned idea that men are fundamentally entitled to persist. Because if men are meant to persist, then women who say no must only be rejecting the attempt, not the man himself, so that every separate attempt becomes one of a potentially infinite number of keys which might just fit the lock of the woman’s approval. She’s not the one who’s allowed to say no, not really; she should be silent and passive as a locked door, waiting patiently while the man runs through however many keys he can be bothered trying. And if he gets sick of this lengthy process and just breaks in? Well, frustration under those circumstances is only natural. Either the door shouldn’t have been there to impede him, or it shouldn’t have been locked.”

- The Creepiness Question (via notemily)

"A catcall is entirely about reminding you that you are not yours. The purity myth is entirely about..."

Mon, 13 May 2013 23:55:42 -0400

“

A catcall is entirely about reminding you that you are not yours. The purity myth is entirely about reminding you that you are not yours. The fetishization of female purity in a world where catcalls are an acceptable form of communication telegraphs one thing very clearly:

“Women, stop sexualizing yourselves—that’s our job, and you’re taking all the fun out of it.”

The sexualization of women is only appealing if it’s nonconsensual. Otherwise it’s “sluttiness,” and sluttiness is agency and agency is threatening.

”

- “Female ‘Purity’ is Bullshit”, by Lindy West (at jezebel.com)

I FUCKING LOVE LINDY WEST. SHE’S FROM SEATTLE AND SHE’S DA BEST.

(via abbigshmail)

^ Perfectly sums up why slut shaming is a load of misogynistic bullshit <3

And why these pathetic, limp dicked little weaklings need to get it through their dense skulls that we don’t give a fuck if they don’t like us ‘Dressing/acting like sluts’

We don’t give a fuck what they think/feel about us doing ANYTHING for that matter

The only person whose opinion of the way I dress/behave matters to me is MINE

(via thefingerfuckingfemalefury)