now.

G R I M E S: I don't want to have to compromise my morals in order to make a living

Thu, 23 May 2013 22:30:37 -0400

G R I M E S: I don't want to have to compromise my morals in order to make a living :

i dont want my words to be taken out of context

i dont want to be infantilized because i refuse to be sexualized

i dont want to be molested at shows or on the street by people who perceive me as an object that exists for their personal satisfaction

i dont want to live in a world where…

"The universal impulse to dance is one of celebration, in its most fundamental state, dance..."

Thu, 16 May 2013 15:51:45 -0400

“The universal impulse to dance is one of celebration, in its most fundamental state, dance celebrates embodiment. We dance our sentient, embodied existence. Dance stems from an impulse to express and sustain a vital life and to project and share its aesthetic dimensions. Certainly we may dance somber and despairing themes; but underneath thematic intentionality is a basic impulse that is positive and live engendering. In dance we celebrate our living, concrete reality—our embodiment—and within the complexity that embodiment proffers. It is thus that dance may be called a sign for life. As dance is experienced through our vital body—the source of both dance and celebration—it signifies vital human embodiment, or life, as we typically use this word to describe both a vital force and the history of our experience—an indivisible physical and spiritual whole. Dance points toward our moving and perishable embodied existence, holding it before us, filling and freeing present time that we may dwell whole within it.”

- Sondra Horton Fraleigh

"Why do we sacrifice so much energy to our art? Not in order to teach others but to learn with them..."

Thu, 16 May 2013 15:48:55 -0400

“Why do we sacrifice so much energy to our art? Not in order to teach others but to learn with them what our existence, our organism, our personal and unrepeatable experience have to give us; to learn to break down the barriers which surround us and to free ourselves from the breaks which hold us back, from the lies about ourselves which we manufacture daily for ourselves and for others; to destroy the limitations caused by our ignorance and lack of courage; in short, to fill the emptiness in us: to fulfill ourselves. Art is neither a state of the soul (in the sense of some extraordinary, unpredictable moment of inspiration) nor a state of man (in the sense of a profession or social function). Art is a ripening, an evolution, an uplifting which enables us to emerge from darkness into a blaze of light.”

- Grotowski’s Principles, II

Not just a girl…..

Wed, 15 May 2013 00:26:19 -0400

Not just a girl…..:

So my amazing daughter, Emma,Â turned 5 last month, and I had been searching everywhere for new-creative inspiration for her 5yr pictures. I noticed quite a pattern of so many young girls dressing up as beautiful Disney Princesses, no matter where I looked 95% of the “ideas” were the “How to’s”…

I love this so, so much.

"For the last three decades many Americans have puzzled over a system that gives an R to a movie in..."

Mon, 13 May 2013 17:31:48 -0400

““For the last three decades many Americans have puzzled over a system that gives an R to a movie in which a women is carved up by a chainsaw and an NC-17 to one that shows a woman sexually pleasured. From such ratings one might conclude that sexual violence against women is OK for American teenagers to see, but that they must be 18 to see consensual sex. What message does this send to the kids the MPAA presumably means to protect?””

- Carrie Rickey

(via fireworkselectricbright)

“You have to question a cinematic culture which preaches artistic expression, and yet would support a decision that is clearly a product of a patriarchy-dominant society, which tries to control how women are depicted on screen. The MPAA is okay supporting scenes that portray women in scenarios of sexual torture and violence for entertainment purposes, but they are trying to force us to look away from a scene that shows a woman in a sexual scenario which is both complicit and complex. It’s misogynistic in nature to try and control a woman’s sexual presentation of self. I consider this an issue that is bigger than this film.”

-Ryan Gosling on the controversy around the rating of his film ‘Blue Valentine’

(via misandry-mermaid)

"Marry your best friend. I do not say that lightly. Really, truly find the strongest, happiest..."

Mon, 13 May 2013 17:30:37 -0400

““Marry your best friend. I do not say that lightly. Really, truly find the strongest, happiest friendship in the person you fall in love with. Someone who speaks highly of you. Someone you can laugh with. The kind of laughs that make your belly ache, and your nose snort. The embarrassing, earnest, healing kind of laughs. Wit is important. Life is too short not to love someone who lets you be a fool with them. Make sure they are somebody who lets you cry, too. Despair will come. Find someone that you want to be there with you through those times. Most importantly, marry the one that makes passion, love, and madness combine and course through you. A love that will never dilute - even when the waters get deep, and dark.””

- N’tima (via eleven-nine)

Sun Tea - Free People

Fri, 10 May 2013 01:05:02 -0400

Sun Tea - Free People

"I did what Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s COO, encourages women to do in her book, Lean In: Women, Work..."

Wed, 01 May 2013 22:08:43 -0400

“

I did what Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s COO, encourages women to do in her book, Lean In: Women, Work and the Will to Lead. In a self-proclaimed feminist movement to address current gender disparities in leadership, Sandberg aims to galvanize women with a call to action to lean in and step up in the workplace.

I did step up. I leaned in at staff team meetings, sat at the table and contributed to the dialogue. I explored and pursued research opportunities. I asked for mentorship. I scheduled meetings with key players, and asked for their support and guidance in moving my research career forward.

But leaning in has its limitations for women in the workplace, and especially for Latinas.

When Latinas lean in at work, they are often examined through a lens blurred with ethnic prejudices, and socially prescribed roles and expectations. God forbid she has a Spanish accent…

More than once, a lost patient or hospital staff wandering down the hall came to my office door to ask for direction. “Are you the secretary?” they would ask. “No, I’m Dr. Perez, how can I help you?” I’d reply. My title was often met by a subtle facial expression of surprise.

My bachelor’s degree from Columbia University and Ph.D. has raised questions on the role that affirmative action must have played in my academic achievements. In her memoir, Justice Sonia Sotomayor describes a moment when her academic merits were credited to affirmative action, despite graduating summa cum laude from Princeton University. This perpetual attribution of Latinas’ achievements to tokenism is real in the workplace, and underestimates what accomplished Latinas bring to the table.

An assertive Latina at work risks being seen as “difficult” or “opinionated.” A confident voice level makes her “confrontational” or “loud.” We are expected to be nice and supportive, and less so leaders. These social perceptions and ethnic biases form an important part of the organizational barriers that women, and especially ethnic/racial women, face in the workplace. This, of course, is in addition to the organizational culture and policies that are blatantly gender biased when it comes to promoting women leadership.

”

- Angélica Pérez-Litwin, “Sheryl Sandberg’s ‘Lean In’ Message Not Enough for Women, Especially Professional Latinas,” Huffington Post 3/18/13 (via racialicious)

Use a lemon, orange or a grapefruit to start your seedlings....

Sat, 20 Apr 2013 23:36:24 -0400

Use a lemon, orange or a grapefruit to start your seedlings. Plant the entire thing in the ground and the peels will compost directly into the soil to nourish the plants as they grow.

Why Dove's "Real Beauty Sketches" Video Makes Me Uncomfortable... and Kind of Makes Me Angry

Wed, 17 Apr 2013 02:14:37 -0400

jazzylittledrops:

So this video started going around my facebook today, with about a dozen of my female friends sharing the link with comments like, and “Everyone needs to see this”, and “All girls should watch this,” and “This made me cry.” And I’m not trying to shame those girls! I definitely understand why they would do so. And I don’t want to be a killjoy. But as I clicked link and started watching the video, I started to feel a slight sense of discomfort. I couldn’t put my finger on why that was, exactly, but it continued throughout the whole thing. After watching the video several more times, I have some thoughts…

Read More

Steubenville: this is rape culture's Abu Ghraib moment

Wed, 20 Mar 2013 15:06:03 -0400

Steubenville: this is rape culture's Abu Ghraib moment:

Steubenville is rape culture’s Abu Ghraib moment. It’s the moment when America and the world are being forced, despite ourselves, to confront the real human horror of the rapes and sexual assaults that take place in their thousands every day in our communities.

Susan Sontag observed of the Abu Ghraib atrocities that “the horror of what is shown in the photographs cannot be separated from the horror that the photographs were taken - with the perpetrators posing, gloating, over their helpless captives. If there is something comparable to what these pictures show it would be some of the photographs of black victims of lynching taken between the 1880’s and 1930’s, which show Americans grinning beneath the naked mutilated body of a black man or woman hanging behind them from a tree. The lynching photographs were souvenirs of a collective action whose participants felt perfectly justified in what they had done. So are the pictures from Abu Ghraib.”

The pictures from Steubenville don’t just show a girl being raped. They show that rape being condoned, encouraged, celebrated. What type of culture could possibly produce such pictures? Only one in which women’s autonomy and right to safety counts for so little that these rapists, and those who held the cameras, felt themselves ‘perfectly justified’. Only one in which rape and sexual humiliation of women and girls is so normalised that it does not register as a crime in the minds of the assailants. Only one in which victims are powerless, silenced, dismissed. It is impossible to imagine that in such a culture, assault and humiliation of this kind would not be routine - and indeed, the most conservative estimates suggest that ninety thousand women and ten thousand men are raped in the United States alone every year. That’s what makes the Steubenville case so very uncomfortable - and so important.

….
What makes these men so sure of their inviolable right to stick their fingers and cocks into any part of any female they can hold down that they actually make and distribute images of each other doing so? Rape culture. That’s what rape culture is. The cultural acceptance of rape.

So You're Tired of Hearing About Rape Culture?

Wed, 20 Mar 2013 13:22:40 -0400

So You're Tired of Hearing About Rape Culture?:

omg this.

CNN: Apologize on air for coverage of Steubenville case

Wed, 20 Mar 2013 13:05:19 -0400

CNN: Apologize on air for coverage of Steubenville case:

Please sign this, tweet at CNN, email them, call them, do what you can to make your voice heard. It’s not about attacking these three journalists in particular—they’re not the only ones and they won’t be the last and I’m sure their intentions were good and all—but this is about recognizing that we are affected by rape culture (YES! IT IS A THING! IT EXISTS!) and that we need to be honest with ourselves and see that we seriously need to change. I want to ask for more than an apology. I want CNN to do a full story about rape culture. We need conversation and we need real reflection, not just a “I’m sorry.”

what i should have said: Here's the fucking thing

Mon, 18 Mar 2013 12:15:15 -0400

what i should have said: Here's the fucking thing:

lagertha-lodbrok:

Here’s the fucking thing

I’ve heard/seen several people mention how the Steubenville case should remind us all to speak to our daughters about parties and drinking.

Thing is, we already fucking do that. We’ve been doing it. You think I won’t be a paranoid mom about this shit with my daughter? You think every time she goes out to a party I won’t ask the universe to protect her? We already worry about and lecture our daughters endlessly. By the time our daughters are 16 they’ve already been told what a cruel and dangerous place this world is for them.

Guess what? They still get attacked.

So maybe, just fucking maybe, we should shift the focus to talking to and lecturing our young boys and men in our communities. Maybe they need to hear from their adult male role models and peers that there is never ever a time when they can assume consent or force themselves on a woman. Maybe we need to stop our boys before they walk out the door to that party and say, “You be careful, son. If she doesn’t say “YES” then you leave her the hell alone, you got it?” or maybe “You stick with your friends, son. Make sure you look out for each other. If one of your buddies is thinking about taking advantage of a girl, you help him home, ok?”

Our young women don’t need anymore lectures. They hear them from childhood on up.

Stop blaming your daughters and start educating your fucking sons.

Love this post by The Sartorialist, so refreshing: Where are...

Mon, 18 Mar 2013 00:25:00 -0400

Love this post by The Sartorialist, so refreshing:

Where are the dreamers? Where are the dreamers???

I wasn’t shocked by the comments regarding this photo, but I’m always surprised by how many people see the world in black or white, yes/no, or just give me the facts.

The USEFUL fashion or style information in this shot is totally irrelevant.

However, her style in this photograph totally sets the stage for the dream you can create around this image.

So sue me, I’m a dreamer!

Want to know what I see when I look at this image?

A real life Eliza Doolittle (apparently RJT and E. Lentini had the same dream).

Can’t you imagine this young girl (starving artist, i.e. a young Patti Smith in Just Kids) living in a drafty, cold-water flat, in the most dangerous neighborhood of Paris. She can’t risk catching the attention of the men in that quarter so she cocoons herself during her commute to an entry-level position at a chic but dusty antiquarian bookshop in the Palais Royal?

She carries her one nice pair of shoes in a bag to keep them from wearing out too quickly. Every morning before work she has the cheapest coffee and croissant she can find and then uses the café toilet to slip out of her warm cocoon to become the butterfly of the bookshop.

Yes, it’s a silly, overly-romantic little fantasy but it’s all I see when I take or look at a photo like this. Facts and reality mean nothing to me in a case like this or this.

A similarly wonderful post by Garance Dore: http://www.garancedore.fr/en/2013/03/11/back-to-cool/

That’s what my mother didn’t understand : the money I spent on the magazines was enough to feed my imagination for months! I didn’t really even need to buy new clothes. The important thing was to let my imagination wander, to be inspired, and dream. That’s how my love of fashion was born, and it still continues like this today.And that’s definitely why still to this day, I’m touched by the way someone wears their clothes and how their personality comes across more than with an outfit that feels like it come straight out of the runway.

I love them.

Supreme Court to Hear Case on Affirmative Action

Sun, 17 Mar 2013 23:48:00 -0400

Supreme Court to Hear Case on Affirmative Action:

Wisdom from the comments section:

”Diversity in background and experience is *part* of merit; it’s not distinct from it. We may not measure it with the usual standardized tests, but it’s a critical component of academic excellence—truly understanding the world, its people, and cultures.”

“It’s always fascinating to me that when some white students get rejected from a school they immediately jump to the conclusion that a racial minority is responsible. They never file lawsuits claiming that they were denied admission because of a legacy applicant, or an athlete, or because of the financial ability of a wealthy student to pay, or because of the school’s desire to seek out geographical diversity. They never complain about wealthy families spending $30,000 a year on college admission consultants to boost their children’s application strength, or the higher test scores wealthy people receive because they can afford to spend thousands of dollars on SAT test preparation. No, when a white student doesn’t make the cut, she thinks it’s because of her race. This reveals the misguided nature of her family’s lawsuit.”

fauxmosexualtranstrender: wretchedoftheearth: I do find it funny that lesbians are perceived as...

Sun, 17 Mar 2013 23:45:43 -0400

fauxmosexualtranstrender:

wretchedoftheearth:

I do find it funny that lesbians are perceived as man-hating but gay men are not perceived as woman-hating, and in fact are often illogically shielded from accusations of misogyny simply by being gay

weird it’s like male privilege works even when queerness is involved who knew

greenswallow: fancifullauren: irishfangirlshipper: dorkstrider: why do women’s clothing...

Sun, 17 Mar 2013 20:57:00 -0400

greenswallow:

fancifullauren:

irishfangirlshipper:

dorkstrider:

why do women’s clothing designers believe that girls do not need pockets

It’s so they can sell us bags

Your Lifestyle Has Already Been Designed

Sun, 17 Mar 2013 17:10:21 -0400

Your Lifestyle Has Already Been Designed:

But the 8-hour workday is too profitable for big business, not because of the amount of work people get done in eight hours (the average office worker gets less than three hours of actual work done in 8 hours) but because it makes for such a purchase-happy public. Keeping free time scarce means people pay a lot more for convenience, gratification, and any other relief they can buy. It keeps them watching television, and its commercials. It keeps them unambitious outside of work.

We’ve been led into a culture that has been engineered to leave us tired, hungry for indulgence, willing to pay a lot for convenience and entertainment, and most importantly, vaguely dissatisfied with our lives so that we continue wanting things we don’t have. We buy so much because it always seems like something is still missing.

12-year-old girl: I don't want kids when I grow up.

Sun, 17 Mar 2013 17:01:04 -0400

12-year-old girl: I don't want kids when I grow up.
Society: You'll change your mind when you get older. You're only 12. You're too young to know what you want.
16-year-old girl: I'm pregnant.
Society: How could you be so stupid? Do you know anything about safe sex? You should be ashamed.
20-year-old woman: I'm a single mother with an infant son.
Society: You should've gone to college first. You need a stable career before you can support a child.
33-year-old woman: I'm married and my spouse and I both have stable careers. I have two young daughters now.
Society: You're not staying home? Who's going to take care of them? You're just going to put them in day care while you work? That's selfish of you. You can't expect to raise decent kids with a full-time job.
45-year-old woman: I just had my first child.
Society: Why would you have a child when you're that old? Do you realize the health risks of being pregnant at your age? When your kid is a teenager you'll be a senior citizen. That's inconsiderate of you.
60-year-old woman: I haven't had any children.
Society: Your life must be so unfulfilling. Is there something wrong with you? Why didn't you want kids? How strange.