Stands up on soapbox, holds up this article like it’s the opening of the Lion King.
Y’all should read this because it is FIRE, but also because a post from the Time Lady Project was linked in this!
Historically, whenever young women are interested in a form of media,
we like to tell them it is bad for them and that they are bad for
liking it — unless the media goes mainstream, in which case it becomes
no longer feminine and hence okay. Novels are dangerous and cause
insanity, until they become classics worthy of being studied in college. Beatlemania is the province of “the dull, the idle, the failures,“ until the Beatles become a band that everyone loves.
Young women are so attacked for loving the media they love that it is
a radical act for a young woman to love something unashamedly. And
transformative fandom is the most radical act of all, because it
reverses that “lady thing to respectable thing” process.
Emphasis added. It’s so good- go read the whole thing.
Yesterday we met up with a bunch of family friends and at one point my dad asked me to move a plastic table. “Can you come up here and help me move the table,” he said, “since it’s light anyway?” I was a bit taken aback by the last comment since, well, I could just go and do it and if it was too heavy I’d notice by myself. But I just say “sure” and decide not to comment on that.
So I come up to my dad, lift the large but actually incredibly light plastic table (it was something I could evidently easily lift with one arm, for reference); I realize there’s a bunch of chairs in the way so I tell my dad, who’s on the other side of the table and might not see it. I put down the table and start moving the chairs. All the while he’s started insisting he can call someone else to move the table and I keep saying “really, we just gotta move these chairs that are right here in the way”. He insists and I repeat that, and so on.
Now, most of the time when my dad is being unintentionally sexist I let him know, but this time all I could think of was that I really didn’t have time for bullshit about lifting some feather-light plastic table and I didn’t wanna stress myself out on vacation so I just insisted more forcefully on doing what I was doing.
Anyway, after I’ve moved all the chairs out of the way, I pick the table back on, my dad on the other side of it, and I start moving. Immediately another one of the guys runs up to me and starts offering to do this instead, to which again I say “no thanks”, adding “this is really light really” for good measure because I’ve been here many times before and I know that unless I reassure him the object in front of me is so innocuous evenI, a woman, can take it!, he’s not gonna listen. He insists, I say no again, he comes up behind me anyway no matter how much I protest that I’m fine and picks up the motherfucking table (which is still being lifted by my dad and I as we move) on my side and starts walking with us while I refuse to let go. By the time we’ve reached some stairs, another two men have appeared behind me and are also insisting I leave the task to them. Eventually they corner me on the stairs and since the stairs are tiny and I don’t want them to fucking cause an incident because they’re basically bodily pushing me aside, I let go. (Funnily enough I end up in a corner and have to yell to let me pass because they’ve become too focused on talking amon themselves and moving the table through the door in front of them to realize they’re about to shove the legs of the table on my face).
I cannot tell you how livid I was.
When I told my sister, she told me about this one new guy who wouldn’t hit her no matter how much she insisted it was fine during krav maga practice. She comes from years of various combat arts. He later realized she’s trained and acted surprised despite the fact that she’d told him several times to just do the exercise as he was supposed to.
I told her the two guys at therapy will literally refuse to go through the door if I’m holding it open for them unless I act distracted while I do it (not look at them, make it look like I just casually forgot I’m still holding the door open). They’ll either bodily push me out of the way so they can hold the door open for me instead, or stay still and insist I go until I do it. I’ve had time to experiment.
My sister said the men at her therapy group do the same.
This isn’t courtesy. You’re not helping someone who asked, or offering help and then listening to the answer. You’re not saving women as a group. You’re not making up for other men’s sexism (or your own). You’re being sexist. You’re being condescending, not listening to the woman in front of you, aggressively trying to keep yourself in a position where you can be the sole offerer of things and the woman can only be in the role of receiving your “kindness” and exchange gratefulness for it, and making it all about your coming to the rescue – even though no-one asked you to in the first place. And if you’re so uncomfortable with any breach of the script that you can’t even walk through a door if a woman is holding it open for you, then there’s a problem, and it’s yours, and working on it is on you, not on me. Same goes when you treat a woman like she can’t perform menial tasks.
This, so much. When I was younger (and not chronically ill) I used to volunteer on the weekends with this group that did things like winter-proofing houses for people who couldn’t afford it, fixing their cars, collecting used furniture and appliances to give to people who needed it, etc. And one Saturday I was assigned–along with a guy about my age, height, build, and level of athletic ability–the task of cleaning and organizing the warehouse where we stored the furniture and appliances.
It involved a lot of physical labor, including moving objects of various sizes and weights. And it wasn’t necessarily easy or menial in any way, but it was well within my capabilities and it was, after all, literally what I was there for.
But I spent 75% of my energy that morning repeatedly telling the dude to stop trying to keep me from picking up anything heavier than a hand blender. It took me a solid four ours of insisting, cajoling, reassuring, and finally just outright snapping at the guy to get him to lay off and just let me do the job I’d come there to do.
Then, when I finally had him resigned (very reluctantly) to only helping me move large, extremely heavy furniture that legitimately required two people to move–which he started out trying to move alone because he was so insistent on “being a gentleman”–his damn stepbrother showed up and started up with the same shit (in addition to giving the dude crap for “letting me” carry all this heavy stuff myself).
Well, by that point I’d run out of patience, and I told him in no uncertain terms that I was here to do work, not stand around and look pretty while the big, strong men did all the work for me, and if he wasn’t going to help where it was actually needed to kindly get out of my way and stop being a distraction. I then proceeded to take the feather-light stack of plastic fucking lawn chairs he thought I was too delicate to carry back from him and continue with my work.
That day of work got me labeled “too independent” by all the guys in the volunteer group. Even my grandmother, a fierce Annie Oakley of a single parent with no qualms about speaking her mind and making her own way, told me I should have just let the boys “help” me because they were trying to be “nice.” No amount of explaining that they weren’t helping, they were being a hindrance, seemed to get through to anyone.
Nothing they did that day to try and “help” me was helpful. The other guy actually ended up injuring himself trying to keep me from helping him move heavy things. And every moment he spent trying to take things out of my hands and carry them for me was a moment he could have just picked up something else and moved it, or cleaned something, or otherwise helped actually make progress on the job we were doing.
So my dudes. Listen. I am not “too independent” to accept your help or whatever bullshit, if and when I need it. We all need help sometimes, regardless of gender. But if I say I don’t need your help and you keep insisting, you’re going to get my mean side really quickly.
Ooh, ooh.
So back in my girl mode days when I worked at McDs, I was heavily feminine presenting. Like, went to work always with nails done, hair done, full face of make-up… the works.
And a lot of the other girls there wouldn’t lift anything heavier than one 10-lb box of sauces… and not even that if they could help it. Like, they’d get a cart and block everything to stock one type of sauce.
So one day, about three weeks in, I get told to stock sauce. And there’s a LOT that needs stocked.
But the cart is in use.
Oh well. I load up all the sauces I need – a good 70 or so lbs; more than half my body weight at the time – and carry them in my hands to the front.
Or. I try to.
Twice I got stopped by male coworkers getting in my way trying to help me by taking my carefully balanced boxes off my stack. I almost had to shout at them to get out of my way and let me get to the front.
Eventually I trained them to just let me haul the heavy shit and not get right in my fucking path.
Then we got a new guy. Who did not take, “No.” or “Move.” for an answer. And just yanked the top four boxes of sauce off my stack one day.
They fell. And of course the boxes busted open and sauce packets went everywhere.
And whose fault do you think this was?
Well, obviously the guy’s, but he tried saying that, see, I couldn’t carry all that, I should have let him help.
Literally the only thing that shut him up was the male manager saying, “Dude, shut up. She does that all the time; she had it until you got in her way.”
Needless to say it is almost a decade later and I am still livid.
It’s almost as if men as a group thought they know how much our bodies can take better than we do and thought they get to decide how much our bodies should take and how we should use them
When I was moving the big stuff back in after my renovation (fridge, couch, washing machine, …), together with my dad, my neighbor literally pushed me out of the way to do it together with my dad. He was an immigrant, which is mostly only relevant because he didn’t speak the language quite yet and I couldn’t argue with him (although really “no” is sort of a universal thing), but I was SO pissed.
You know what happens when you carry heavy stuff? You grow some muscles. You learn how to grab on to things, how to balance the weight. You know what happens when men don’t let you do that, and insist they do it themselves? THEY get stronger, and you end up a little flower with no ability to carry anything anywhere.
Men are stronger than me without trying, they always will be, and I have no issue asking for help when I need it. But jfc let me do what I AM able to do.
I once had a tire almost completely changed when two men pulled over simultaneously and took over. I let them because I’d proven to myself that I could do the hard part (Jacking up the car, getting the machine-tightened lug nuts off, getting the spare out) but like, I’d actually done the hard part?
I have a fuse that goes out periodically on my Dodge Grand Caravan and makes the doors not work on the remote. The fix is “prop hood, open fuse box, pull fuse, wait 30 seconds, put it back, close it up.” I’m pretty disabled now and I can STILL do this and guys are always disappointed when they see me with the hood up and ask if they can help and I’ve got it. Like, I seriously doubt you know which fuse to pull, dude, and it’s like this half inch doohicky that isn’t even heavy. My husband does not know how to do this. That’s okay. I looked it up online and it’s saved me probably $500 worth of mechanic fees over the years to know this trick. And they don’t want to take no for an answer. They HOVER and ask if I’m sure.
I ask for help ALL the time. I’m in an electric cart at the store and I will always ask whoever’s standing near the high shelf to hand me the whatever it is. I don’t mind. But if I get to the door first, I’m opening it. There are things I do need help with and things I don’t. I don’t even mind people offering, but jeez, take no for an answer?
Once upon a time I was working 14 hours a day doing hard work remodeling my house. I was STRONG.
This shit is so irritating
I once was on a trip with some coworkers and every time we walked around ruins or whatever that weren’t perfectly flat, this one guy would be like: would you like hand? are you ok? And it’s like, could you please move so I can walk?
so i just started doing back to him. Oh, would you like some help out of the boat? and eventually he stopped
“A clinic in Ohio recently started screening women for the ground-breaking procedure, which would allow women to transplant their uterus into a woman who doesn’t have one.
The transplant could be conducted on a woman ‘born without a uterus, or who had it removed or have uterine damage’ – this would make trans women eligible for the procedure.
A 26-year-old woman who is undergoing the screening process told The Times: ‘I crave that experience.
‘I want the morning sickness, the backaches, the feet swelling. I want to feel the baby move. That is something I’ve wanted for as long as I can remember.’
Dr Christine McGinn, a plastic surgeon, told Yahoo News: ‘The human drive to be a mother for a woman is a very serious thing.
‘Transgender women are no different.’”
Medical miracle.
I’d donate mine 🙂 I’m not using it.
Mine works please take it and further research on getting trans men penises that work on their own god bless
I would give my uterus away so fast science please let this succeed
I know mine works and I’m done with it now, so if anybody else wants it…
It’s time to stop talking about The Handmaid’s Tale like it’s futuristic dystopian fiction. The war on women is real and Republicans are trying to legislate rape culture into law.
The Outbursts of Everett True was a comic strip that ran in papers from 1905 to 1927, wherein the aforementioned Everett True regularly beat the everliving shit out of rude people as a warning to anyone else who might consider being rude. Men have not only been taking up too much room on public transport for about as long as public transport has existed, but the people around them have been irritated about it for at least a hundred years. The next time someone tries to claim that manspreading is a false phenomenon, please direct them to this strip so that Everett True can correct their misconceptions with an umbrella upside the head.
I have never before heard of Everett True, but if he “regularly beat the everliving shit out of rude people as a warning to anyone else who might consider being rude,” I have a strong spiritual connection with him.
If Trumpcare becomes law, it is chilling to think of the millions of other sexual assault survivors whose health care will also be affected. It is even more chilling to think of the untold number of women who will be discouraged from reporting future sexual assaults, due to the concern that they will later be penalized for coming forward.
And speaking of gross bros thinking of nerd girls like fucking unicorns…
I was actually talking to a female client once about cannon-fannon and how much I love listening to her talk comics, and had a male client interupt us to tell me he has never met a chick that is into comics before, he’s never even heard of a girl being into comics before, and he has always wanted a nerdy girlfriend and that i absolutely MUST give him her number.
I actually had to explain to him that I wasn’t joking when I said she was out of his league. Yes, she is incredible, she is beautiful, she is intelligent, successful, highly knowledgeable and enthusiastic about comics, and she’s also not even going to look twice at you because literally all you got is that she fulfills a fantasy of yours.
Yes bro i get it, she’s your ideal girl. Trust me, she’s a lot of people’s ideal girl. And you’re not even on her radar. You’re not special because you’re into comics. She has a very wide range of potential partners to choose from and ‘never having met a nerdy girl before’ isn’t a good character trait, because it means you know zero women. Or zero women have trusted your creepy ass with the knowledge that they are into comics.
The most concerning part of that entire conversation was his complete inability to grasp the concept that she wouldn’t date him and his insistence that she would.
He insisted that I give her name/number/fb/actually call her and ask her to come to the studio (wtffff???) because he needed to meet her. And then just could not fathom that I refused. He seemed to be running on this idea that if she met him, she would like him. For no other reason than that he was into comics and he wanted a nerd girlfriend.
And I was somehow out of line for refusing to give my best freinds deets to this creepy nerdbro because I couldn’t possibly know that she wouldn’t be into him.
He got really upset.
He was in my studio for 45 mins arguing with me on and off about this and trying to push me into giving her number.
Out. Of. Your. League. Not on your level. Too fucking good for you. Not a possibility. You’ve got nothing she wants. You’re one of literally thousands who would want her. You have nothing to offer her. You tick zero of her boxes. You do not even meet the minimum requirements for me to even ask her.
NOT
HAPPENING
MATE.
This is why women don’t say they’re women in WoW, this is why women don’t say they’re into games irl. This is why women don’t hang out in comics stores. This is why nerd women hide one of these two aspects of themselves when interacting with nerd men.
Because you creepy as FUCK about us.
‘never having met a nerdy girl before’ isn’t a good character trait, because it means you know zero women.
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