“I Can Too” by Fujiko Isomura
If any female feels she need anything beyond herself to legitimate and validate her existence, she is already giving away her power to be self-defining, her agency.
“
| — | bell hooks, Feminism is for Everybody: Passionate Politics (via stand-tall-ladies) |
OH MY GOD
I GOT INTO TASP.
Over 1250 people applied and only 64 got in and I AM ONE OF THE 64.
6 WEEKS ON MY OWN ON A COLLEGE CAMPUS AT THE MOST PRESTIGIOUS SUMMER PROGRAM IN THE COUNTRY DISCUSSING BLACK FEMINIST HISTORY AND LITERATURE.
IS THIS REAL LIFE.
It grew out of trying to conceptualize the way the law responded to issues where both race and
gender discrimination were involved. What happened was like an accident, a collision. Intersectionality simply
came from the idea that if you’re standing in the path of multiple forms of exclusion, you are likely to get hit by
both. These women are injured, but when the race ambulance and the gender ambulance arrive at the scene, they
see these women of color lying in the intersection and they say, “Well, we can’t figure out if this was just race or
just sex discrimination. And unless they can show us which one it was, we can’t help them.
gender discrimination were involved. What happened was like an accident, a collision. Intersectionality simply
came from the idea that if you’re standing in the path of multiple forms of exclusion, you are likely to get hit by
both. These women are injured, but when the race ambulance and the gender ambulance arrive at the scene, they
see these women of color lying in the intersection and they say, “Well, we can’t figure out if this was just race or
just sex discrimination. And unless they can show us which one it was, we can’t help them.
“
| — | Crenshaw, Kimberle. 1994. “Intersectionality: The Double Bind of Race and Gender,” Perspectives Magazine of the American Bar Association. (via aswekissgoodbye) |
Driving as a Metaphor for Privilege
So I’m going to try to explain privilege using a metaphor. Tell me if it works out.
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Imagine that there is a literal city in the world named Success, and it is everyone’s goal in life to get there. The closer you are, the better your life is. Kings and Queens are born in the city, and the Romney children take a private jet there, but most people in the western world drive.
Except there are some [metaphorical] rules of the road:
People of color are 4 times as likely to get pulled over by police and/or jailed.
Women have to drive 20 miles slower than men do.
Disabled people aren’t allowed to get a license.
People who can’t afford health insurance can’t afford auto insurance.
Rich people can buy better cars.
People in the LGBT community are more likely to run into roadblocks.
Most middlingly privileged white people in the western world live in the next country over, and they spend most of their life driving on winding off-roads in Toyota Camrys trying to get to Success. They have a paper map, so they know where they’re going. Semi-rarely, they will get into an accident, as they were taught how to drive. The police leave them alone unless they do anything seriously dangerous.
Most very privileged people have Porsches and Lexuses and a built in GPS system and live within the same country as Success and generally take a highway to get there. They either have a driver, or they’ve been taught how to drive by incredible instructors.
Most unprivileged people in the west have 30 year old cars and no auto insurance and only have access to gravel and dirt roads, no map.They live a couple of countries away. Accidents are common, as some drivers have received more instruction than others, but the median knowledge is mediocre. They’re pulled over with varying frequency. Sometimes they run into road blocks and can’t take better roads. When these people write letters to the citizens of Success asking them for a hand in getting there, the citizens reply “But you have a car! You have roads! You know how to drive! We did this by ourselves, you have to do it by yourself.” Though they beg the citizens of Success to pave the roads and raise the speed limit or provide a map, very rarely do these things happen.
People in developing countries live at the far edge of the continent and generally just have a bike, no roads at all. People in third world countries live on a different continent and have to walk.
SO YES, everyone has free will. When you drive/walk/bike, you can control where you are going. And yes! Most Westerners have cars. And roads. And licenses. But just because they have these things doesn’t mean they’re able to get to Success. It’s more complicated than that.
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Similarly in the real world, just because someone lives in a western capitalist country and has access to things like free education does not necessarily mean that person is feasibly capable of being traditionally successful.
Our girl Alice wrote this great piece about coming to terms with the fact that we live in a world where if you’re not careful, you’ll be consumed with 24/7/365 anger. We’re big fans of righteous anger—it’s powerful, it can be productive, and it’s something a lot of girls are taught to deny in themselves—we know that feeling nothing butanger isn’t a sustainable way to live, so we’re big fans of this piece, too. Check it out.
OH SHIT I WROTE THIS
READ IT
IT’S GOOD
I spent so much time on this piece and I’m so so thankful to Bailey and Melissa for being the BEST editors and to Catherine for letting me tell her story.
& I talk about my underwear and dancing in my underwear and also feminism things.
My body is far too valuable to be treated like a car whose worth is lowered because of some wear and tear. It’s far too astounding to be a metaphor or a political statement. It’s far too complicated to run on the same formula used to fuel a lawn mower. It is far too profound to be reduced to a ratio of weight and height. And it is far too amazing to be judged by anyone.
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| — |
Because It’s My Body(via loveyourrebellion) |
We should ban life jackets and other flotation devices. They only encourage risky behavior. The only 100% effective way to prevent drowning is total abstinence from going in the water.
And if you do, by chance, find yourself struggling with drowning, then no life-saving or otherwise procedure or act should be allowed to be administered. You got yourself into this mess, you have to live with the consequences.
You should see drowning as a gift.
You, there with the sunglasses! You’re just asking for it.
Also, if you were forcibly pushed into the water, don’t worry. If it was a legitimate pushing, your body will find a way to shut out all the water and survive the drowning.
Abstract
One hundred and thirty people working as prostitutes in San Francisco were interviewed regarding the extent of violence in their lives and symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Fifty-seven percent reported that they had been sexually assaulted as children and 49% reported that they had been physically assaulted as children.As adults in prostitution, 82% had been physically assaulted; 83% had been threatened with a weapon; 68% had been raped while working as prostitutes; and 84% reported current or past homelessness.
We differentiated the types of lifetime violence as childhood sexual assault; childhood physical abuse; rape in prostitution; and other (non-rape) physical assault in prostitution. PTSD severity was significantly associated with the total number of types of lifetime violence (r = .21, p = .02); with childhood physical abuse (t = 2.97, p = .004); rape in adult prostitution (Student’s t = 2.77, p = .01); and the total number of times raped in prostitution (Kruskal-Wallace chi square = 13.51, p = .01). Of the 130 people interviewed, 68% met DSM III-R criteria for a diagnosis of PTSD. Eighty-eight percent of these respondents stated that they wanted to leave prostitution, and described what they needed in order to escape.
