I’m clearing out my drafts by making this post. I had a lot of posts I started and never finished:
It hurts to watch adults on Facebook criticize teenagers for protesting for gun control. Because inevitably, it’s baby boomers who suggest that bullying is the real problem with mass shootings – which ignores the fact that while bullying is a major issue in schools, the fact that only young men are behind mass shootings suggests there’s a lot more at work there. That it isn’t just about trying to befriend the outcasts, it’s about adults giving boys and young men better tools for dealing with their rage. If we teach all children that it’s okay to talk about feelings, to cry, to find safe outlets to deal with their rage (like writing or artwork and THERAPY)… that will go a long way towards stopping this violence. Because most of the time it’s a boy who had no outlet to deal with being bullied, their feelings of entitlement or on occasion, how to deal with being dumped. And frankly, the common denominator for all of these is that it was boys with no outlet, but ready access to guns. (By the way, you can work on removing child access to guns AND improve anti-bullying programs. Out here, a lot of school districts are implementing them primarily in elementary schools, since that’s when kids are the most malleable. It doesn’t mean schools aren’t serious about changing things, they just don’t have the budgets to really shake things up at all levels)
I kept waiting for someone to tackle the whole Aziz Ansari thing by talking about Sexual Coercion and how important it is that we actually make this part of sex ed and discussions, and nobody really did. I also wanted someone to take that site to task for just putting this woman’s story out there without the larger discussion – and most people were just either criticizing her or Ansari. But the problem with a lot of websites wanting to be first is that they aren’t taking the time to do it right. (Sexual Coercion is wrong, but we have a lot of systemic garbage to undo before a lot of women realize it’s wrong – and more importantly where women feel like it’s safe to say no or articulate where they’re uncomfortable)
Amy Schumer’s I Feel Pretty is rooted in fatphobia and there’s nothing body positive about it. Any movie where the only way a woman who is just slightly over the conventionally accepted weight can feel beautiful is after head trauma? That’s not positive, that’s fucked up. (Also: I’m tired of Schumer’s insistence that she’s too fat for Hollywood. Because the amount of money that she gets paid, and the amount of movies she makes despite their poor box office performance makes it clear that she’s doing just fine. As opposed to the amount of pressure that other women have faced)
Marvel needs to stop cutting out LGBTQIA representation, and Hollywood needs to stop giving us crumbs for representation. We’re here, we’re queer… let us be represented.
#MeToo: The reason women haven’t come forward is made explicitly clear in the comments of any story that gets posted or shared. We are very much a society that doesn’t want to accept any complicity in other people being harassed, or face the things that we’ve endured (reframing them as harassment, not just the way things are). Also, if you can’t flirt without sexually harassing someone? That is your problem. Flirting at its finest is consensual and playful.
There. Blog post amnesty complete.