booarenotboo:

thelefthandedwifeinhiding:

yoyomar:

bricorama:

schadenfraulein:

Oh.

WHUT A CUNT.

Voice of a generation.

fuck this bitch

~so edgy~

gyzym:

ginnie-lee-r:

rebekahloves:

folkandfemme:

aynrandinaminiskirt:

Korean poster which has been making it’s way around

Translation:

Protesting sexual harassment and violence against women

ETIQUETTE FOR MEN AT NIGHT

1. Remember that your presence can be threatening to women walking alone at night
2. If a woman is walking in front of you alone at night, slow down. You walking quickly or speeding up can be and in most cases is threatening
3. If you’ve been drinking and are drunk, go straight home.
4. Do not pick a fight or aggravate women walking at night
5. Do not take off your clothes or publicly urinate
6. Be careful to make sure you do not touch or hit someone, even on accident.
7. If, late at night, you come to a situation in which you and a woman have to ride an elevator together, let her go up first and wait for the elevator to come back down.
8. If there’s a woman in a public restroom (There are Korean public restrooms with no gender or sex markings that are open to all people), wait for her to finish and come out first before using the restroom.
9. Report broken streetlights to the police
10. Tell other men about these rules and that they have a responsibility to not threaten women walking at night

reprinting, pasting around earth

in like 5th grade they need to start teaching this shit in the US, along with a class on “Girls Don’t Call each Other Sluts and Whores. It Just Makes it Okay For Guys to Call You Sluts and Whores.”  But no, really.

Why is a guy taking an elevator ride with you threatening? I have an issue with the “every time you are alone with a man, even for the five to thirty seconds you’re on the elevator, he is going to try to rape you” mentality. I think it breeds fear, rather than caution.

And, really, the main conversation had on elevators is, “What floor?” “Seven, thanks.”

And then you don’t even make eye-contact.

I like some of the other guidelines, but taking it to that extent, at least to me, just implies that men have absolutely no control over their need to have sex with women, even when they’re unwilling, even for the thirty seconds that they’re on the elevator.

I very much appreciate the fact that this flier gives the responsibility of preventing rape to people other than the potential victims, but that one point bothered me. Quite a bit, apparently.

Right, so, I thought it might be worth breaking this down and explaining why I, personally, think the elevator rule is a pretty great one! All the respect in the world for your viewpoint, and YMMV, obviously.

• I’ve spent time in elevators with men late at night, both before and after I was raped. Beforehand, the experience would often make me jittery, uncomfortable, and sometimes panicky, especially if the man I was sharing the car with was significantly larger than me, silent, visibly checking me out, or verbal in an agressive/sexual way. The few times I’ve found myself in that situation since my rape, on the other hand, have been more or less torture. Five to thirty seconds feels a lot longer when you’re running through, in your head, every possible way the person in the car with you could take advantage of your being trapped with them in a tiny room with no exits, no ways for other people to see in, and no places to hide. Five to thirty seconds kind of feels like an eternity when you’re spending every one of them wondering when the person in the car with you is going to hit the alarm button, stop the car, and harm you. 
• I agree with you that the idea that men are uncontrollable rape-machines is ridiculous, not because it’s insulting to men but because it takes responsibility for rape away from men who commit it (“Oh,” says Rape Culture knowingly, “well, you can’t blame him for that. Boys will be boys!”). However, the idea that stuff like this is breeding fear rather than caution is, er, kind of unfair and more than kind of wrong. This isn’t….fear that’s being bred? This is fear that exists already, because a whole shit ton of people are getting raped and assaulted on the extremely regular. Like. Seriously. Check this shit out. Google some stuff. Poke around for awhile, and keep in mind that the stuff you’ll find on that site I linked is just stuff from the States. There is a lot of rape and assault. Happening. A lot. All over the world. Right now! For real. 
• I know a lot of stand-up, class-act, grade-A, quality dudes who genuinely don’t want to make women feel uncomfortable at night. Like, a whole fucking bunch of dudes like that, who both don’t want to rape anybody and don’t want to make anybody feel like they are in danger of being raped. And while the late-night elevator ride may not ping as a danger zone for you? It does for a lot of people. It does for enough people that it shows up on this widely-circulated, heavily-supported list. And arguing that we shouldn’t circulate information about that fear, to men who want to know how to avoid making women feel uncomfortable at night but don’t know how because we don’t teach it, and for the many many many many women (and others, because not only women get raped, and not only men rape) who already do feel that sharp bite of fear every time this stuff comes up, on the theory that it might increase the fear? Is kind of what’s gotten us into this mess to begin with. The whole, “Let’s not talk about rape because rape is horrible and scary!” thing has produced, er, rape culture. Where rape is something we dance around but don’t talk about honestly, where rape is something we encourage with our silence (by making it seem like something no one will care about), where blame is so often wrongly placed on the victim, not the perpetrator. 

So! My vote is always going to be for Plan More Signs/More Information/More Knowledge, rather than Plan Less Fear. Plan Less Fear doesn’t really work, you know? But informing the populace has a long track record of success, on other issues if not (yet) this one. Just my two cents. <3 

azaadi:

jalwhite:

Tamon Robinson’s Mother, Laverne Dobbinson, Owes NYPD $710 For Damages To Police Car That Killed Son 

In April 2012, Tamon Robinson was struck and killed by an NYPD police car after Robinson was allegedly caught stealing cobblestones from a public housing complex.

Six months later, Robinson’s mother says the city is ordering the family to pay $710 to pay for the damages on the very car that killed her 27-year-old son.

45-year-old Laverne Dobbinson told The Daily News, “We’re still grieving, and this is like a slap in the face. They want my son to pay for damage to the vehicle that killed him. It’s crazy.”

An attorney for the family filed an intent to sue the city and hopes to prevent the department from issuing any repairs to the vehicle as the case is still under investigation. “In my 40 years of practicing law in this city I have never seen anything as heartless as this,” the lawyer told The News, referring to the bill sent to Tamon’s family.

According to police, the car was stopped when Robinson ran into it. Witnesses, however, maintain the car hit Robinson directly.

A witness described the incident, claiming, “They hit him. He flew up and he came down. They backed the car up, and they told him to get up. People were yelling out their windows screaming at the cops, ‘We saw what you did.’ ”

Robinson was rushed to a nearby hospital where he fell into a coma. While unconscious, cops kept himhandcuffed to the hospital bed. Six days later, he was declared brain dead and his family made the decision to take him off the respirator.

Rev. Al Sharpton held a rally in honor of Robinson and demanded an investigation, which is still in process, to look into any criminal wrongdoing in the young man’s death.

An NYPD spokesman declined to comment on the $710 bill.

fivelettered:

selchieproductions:

Indonesia denies it has any indigenous peoples
© Survival International

The government of Indonesia has responded to UN recommendations to recognize the rights of its indigenous peoples by claiming that none live in Indonesia. In fact, Indonesia is home to an estimated 50-70 million indigenous and tribal people.

In a response to the United Nations Periodic Review, a four–year human rights check-up for all countries, Indonesia said this month, ‘The Government of Indonesia supports the promotion and protection of indigenous people worldwide… Indonesia, however, does not recognize the application of the indigenous peoples concept… in the country’.

The UN’s report recommended that Indonesia should consider ratifying ILO Convention 169, the only international law for indigenous and tribal peoples. It also recommended that Indonesia should secure the rights of indigenous peoples, especially to their traditional lands, territories and resources. Indonesia’s denial of the existence of indigenous peoples within its borders was in response to this.

[TRIGGER WARNING: genocide, ethnic cleansing, murder, torture, rape]

Survival International believes that Indonesia treats its indigenous and tribal people, especially in West Papua, worse than any other country in the world. In West Papua killings, torture and rape of tribal people are commonplace – the figure of 100,000 people killed since 1963 is believed to be a conservative estimate.

The denial of the very existence of indigenous peoples in Indonesia is symptomatic of the government’s total disregard for their rights.

Indonesia’s President, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, will travel to the UK for a State visit on October 31st.

Note to Editors:

• You can read the UN’s Periodic Review on Indonesia here (PDF, 2.6 MB)
• You can read Indonesia’s response to the review here (PDF, 368 KB)

I was just reading about Indonesia’s Indigenous people and their usage of ‘museums’ in an alternate sense. 

nerdbyrd:

As some of you know (ok, like 2 of you), I work for an organization which is heavily based in the occupy movement. My job is to sort through emails and facebook messages and talk to people. Usually we just get youtube videos about the venus project and petitions for people wanting to arrest BP. The other day, I got this, and I don’t know how to make this right. I want to act where OWS failed to and take these things seriously. Please reblog this if you can; this woman just wants justice, and i think that’s something we can all help with by spreading the word. 

————————————————

[TW: description of rape]

[like serious: it’s not graphic, but it is horrific]

Please read this post in its entirety. It is of paramount importance.

Many of you know me, and many of you don’t. I’ve been active in Occupy since N17. Soon I will be moving overseas. Before I go, there are some loose ends I need to tie up.

Read More

Oh god, that’s fucking awful. Ugh. I’m so so sorry she’s doing that to you and bringing it up over and over and ughhhhhhhhhh.

Oh god, that’s awful, anon, I’m so sorry! And your family blaming you instead of being there for you, that’s vile. And I know you probably know these, but just in case hearing them again would help - I believe you. It’s not your fault. What was done to you is horrible. And people blaming you for it is, too. I’m so sorry :(

If you need an ear, by all means, I’m here and I’ll listen? You matter, and your feelings matter.

goldenheartedrose:

[image description: Tumblr ask between dopethoughtswhilehigh and goldenheartedrose.  dopethoughtswhilehigh asked: ok so no one should have the right to know? because then we would be able to “make” autistic people or “make” “perfect people”?

goldenheartedrose answered: I think it can very easily go very wrong.

What good does it do for the people that are autistic who already exist? Are we important enough to be even a blip on people’s radar? Or no?

What will it do for the potentially autistic people in the future? Is this information going to be used to eliminate autistic people? Most often, the answer is yes.

If autism was a disability that was fatal, that seriously shortened people’s lives by its very nature, I could understand the need to know.  But it doesn’t do that. The only time autism is the cause of someone’s death is when a caretaker/parent/”advocate” MURDERS an autistic person.

You know where your efforts could be better served? In listening to autistic voices, pushing for better disability services, more accommodations, and more understanding about autism.  With helping us spread the message that autism isn’t a tragedy and parents “mourning” their child’s disability is complete and utter bullshit.]

drypaint:

mjolkk:

Since making my post, I have received 1,198 asks on tumblr.

• 98 of them were requesting that I kill myself
• 43 of them were individuals hopeful that I would be raped sometime in the immediate future
• 351 of them were general angry emails about how I’m a bitch/cunt/slut/liar/slanderer/etc
• 14 of them were threats to dig up personal information and pictures to spread around on tumblr and reddit (this is already happening)

The rest were primarily requests for clearer information or proof. I’ve said it already but I’ll say it again: I would love to give you proof, but my face is not a camera. I have been hoping that more people would come forward with their own stories, and they have been. I was not the only one who saw the kind of behavior that had been going on and more accounts of it are starting to come out. I can’t give you more than that.

That being said, there are a few things I would like to clarify: 

Molestation jokes being yelled at Claire Corlett: I don’t know where you guys got the idea that this happened at the CMC panel, as I never said it did. I wasn’t even at that panel. The heckling happened in the halls while I was waiting for a media friend of mine to finish his interview with her. I overheard three young men talking excitedly because they had seen her go into an empty room with said friend and when she came back out to leave the hotel, they started sniggering and crowing things like “Dear Princess Molestia” and “Nooo, come back to that room with me!” This did not occur at the CMC panel. This was in the halls, as was a majority of the things I previously posted about. 

Mocking transgendered individuals: A lot of people seemed to think I was talking about purpletinker but up until the last post started getting traction, I had no idea who they were. My complaint was in regards to a group pointing at a transman friend of mine and calling him a “girly faggot” and also in regards to someone shouting “tranny” at a Rarity cosplayer. I’m not sure if the Rarity cosplayer is transgendered or if they were enjoying crossplay, but the point still stands that “tranny” is a slur.

Rape jokes at the EQD panel: A photo was put up toward the beginning of the panel that was a piece of fanart. It was a picture of Trixie crying and running away from some OC pony making a me gusta face (is this still funny???) and a guy in the back corner of the room called out “Yeah, rape her!” and the whole row started laughing. I know a lot of people are going to hum and hah about how that’s not a big deal, but for people who are survivors of abuse, it absolutely is, and to carelessly make jokes like that in a room full of complete strangers, you never know what someone could have been through in the past. And that shit is not funny ever anyway, so why even bother?

Racial slurs: This was something I encountered twice. Once outside of a room where people were doing fanart challenges (I don’t know if this was the official art jam or just a meeting of artists) and a guy and his friends kept using the term “nigger ponies” and again when there was a piece of humanized pony art posted on a wall and he said that “artists who draw Twilight Sparkle as a fat black make [him] sick.” Also, it’s not a racial slur, but I heard the word “faggot” being tossed around like it was going out of style. 

Overall, I will apologize for making a sweeping generalization of the fandom. I was extremely upset by the things I saw and I made my first post very hastily without thinking of the wordage I was using.

However, I am not going to say I’m sorry for making the later post. A lot of people have accused me of making the entire thing up and trying to stir around drama and I honestly have no idea why they would think that. I have nothing to gain by poking the bronies with a hot stick nor do I have any outstanding grudges with anyone involved in the MLP fandom. I hated what I saw at Everfree and that’s that. I’m not trying to make shit up because I ~*hate bronies*~ and I think the reaction by the fanbase pretty much speaks for itself. 

I don’t have to make an angry post to make these guys look bad. They are doing a fine job of it all on their own.

And that’s all I am going to post about this as well besides photos. Have a goodnight everybody.

queasyfemmeproblems:

morereasonsyoushouldntfuckkids:

[moderate trigger warning: inadvertent enabling, prescriptivism, possible ableism, sexual abuse, suicide]

A couple of months ago a friend of mine (let’s call them Sky), who runs a relatively visible blog on their experience with sexual abuse, posted about how they were feeling suicidal. Shortly after this, Sky’s post was picked up by someone on tumblr and it was reblogged several dozen times. They ended up getting a ton of messages, mostly anonymous, from strangers telling them why they should not kill themselves. Most people would think that this is a good thing to do. After all, what’s wrong with wanting to get some support for someone who needs it?

The problem is that Sky never asked for any help. And some well-intentioned but arrogant stranger decided that they knew Sky’s better situation that they did, and they decided to call the police on them.

The problem is that Sky lives in an abusive situation. They have a chronic illness that makes it very difficult to escape, and they see their abuser(s) on a regular basis.

When the police came to the door, they told Sky’s mother (who is one of their abusers) that someone had said Sky has PTSD, to which their mother replied: “from what?” 

Yes, Sky is in a situation that is that fucked up and dangerous. Around people who regularly believe that the abuse did not happen, or, if it did, it was their fault. Sky has been surviving in this situation for years now.

Yet someone who has never met Sky or even talked to them over the internet or read what they write decided that they knew better. And many other people who have never had a chronic, debilitating illness or lived in a pervasive, abusive situation barged into their life and acted as if they all knew better. For the past few years, Sky has been gradually working at getting better and finding sources of strength for themselves. But this sudden intrusion forced them back into hiding. They had to abandon their tumblr page, which helped them find other, supportive people, and move into another page with less public attention. In the process, they dropped a lot of random acquaintances and other people who may have at least been decent.

The problem with this kind of “help” is that it is not asked for. It removes the ability for people to consent. Not all suicidal people have survived sexual abuse, but for those of us who have, being able to ASK and say yes or no is incredibly important. To take away consent not once, but multiple times by making a “HEY EVERYONE GO HERE AND MAKE ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT SOMEONE’S LIFE” type of post is incredibly hurtful. If you’re a very close friend and you know the person, sure, you might be able make that decision. But if they have said no, then you don’t do it. And if you’re a random stranger who barely knows them, you definitely shouldn’t do it.

Other times, people came from backgrounds where they just did not in any way understand. Sky received messages from total strangers who knew nothing about their situation— people who made annoying and obvious prescriptivist “solutions” or “suggestions” that they had heard time and time again. It wasn’t helpful in any way, just very tiring and yet another reminder of how marginalized they are.

In some ways, these responses were an insulting and subtle method of victim-blaming. There were lots of “I’ve been there! You can do it!” posts when no, they really did not know Sky’s situation in the least. These posts were basically saying, in a round-about way, “I made it through this! Why haven’t you?” Unfortunately, not everyone who wants to “help” in these situations actually wants to help. Sometimes they do it because they are insecure in some way, or because it helps them feel better, not the other person.

So although this started out well-intentioned, it ended up hurting Sky quite a lot. Sky’s story was picked up and their ability to consent to its mass examination was removed without even a second thought. That is not okay. Sky was incredibly lucky that their abuser was simply dismissive as usual— in another situation it could have ended very badly, maybe even in physical danger or death. This is not something you can mess around with.

Sometimes people need to hear a lot of messages of support. Other times, people need to hide away and speak only to a close, trusted friend. This is sexual abuse and other similar types of trauma, not, “my pet goldfish died”. I can broadcast a status about how cute the neighborhood cat is on Facebook, but I would never post a message about feeling suicidal in such a large, public space. It’s two totally different things. I suspect a lot of people (not all, but certainly enough to ask first) are like this too.

Today, someone pointed out to me that a site I used to link to on here participates in this kind of behavior— pointing out random people’s personal pages where they’ve expressed emotional pain and condoning random messages of “support” to “help” them. I apologize a million times over for that— I visited that page awhile ago when they were first starting up, and they didn’t do that kind of thing back then. I’ve changed the link in the top header to another site which does similar work, but which also connects to many other websites with specific resources.

Consent is important. People in these situations already feel powerless and like the world is not listening to them. To remove the ability to consent yet again is just demeaning and hurtful. In some cases, this kind of prescriptivism could be extremely dangerous.

You need to ask us first. If you can’t ask, then don’t “help”.

I added “inadvertent enabling” to the trigger warning up top because this type of bystander action actually reinforces the power dynamic set up by the original abuser(s) by robbing the survivor of autonomy.