weepier tones

descentintotyranny:

2012: The year in sexism

Twelve months of disgraceful discrimination.

Dec. 30 2012

January. It is reported that on average a measly two out of ten speakers on the BBC’s Today programme are women. (Later in the year, John Humphrys is reduced to asking a man to “imagine” he is a woman in an all-male panel on breast cancer.)

February. The US radio-show host Rush Limbaugh calls the student Sandra Fluke a “slut” and a “prostitute” for speaking in favour of contraceptive coverage in health insurance plans. But at least he finally provides a decisive answer to the question: “How much of a tool do you have to be to make 67 firms pledge never to advertise on your show again?”

March. The infamous Uni Lad website returns after a brief hiatus and promptly begins spewing the same misogynistic vitriol about “smashing wenches”. (Minus its previous advice that low rape reporting rates represent “good odds”. So that’s better.)

April. The Sunday Times TV critic and noted Adonis A A Gill claims that the classicist Mary Beard is “too ugly for TV” and “should be kept away from cameras”. She gently points out that he has accidentally “mistaken prejudice for being witty”.

May. Aishwarya Rai Bachchan in Gaining Weight While Pregnant Shocker. The media and thousands of fans lambast the Indian actress for failing to shed the extra pounds immediately post-partum. Special mention to those who accused her of “betraying her country”.

June. Two issues of Now magazine appear side by side on newsagents’ shelves. One reports that the model Abbey Clancy is “dangerously thin” and girls are starving themselves to look like her. The other offers diet tips to get her figure. Meanwhile, the European Commission launches a breathtakingly patronising video aimed at encouraging women into science: a masterpiece of dancing and giggling, with a pink background and make-up montages.

July. The blogger Anita Sarkeesian faces a viral hate campaign after merely proposing research into the tropes of women in video games. One geek feels so strongly that there is no problem with the portrayal of women in the medium that he creates an online game where players can punch Sarkeesian in the face.

August. In the US, the Republican science enthusiast Todd Akin proclaims that women’s bodies are magically able to ward off pregnancy in cases of “legitimate” rape. (To be fair, his research efforts were hampered because Mitt Romney had the binder full of women that day.)

September. “No More Page Three” campaigners are stunned into humiliated silence when the former Sun deputy editor Neil Wallis stymies them with the shock revelation that there are other problems in the world. Admirably, the Sun covers these important issues on page two, which incidentally doubles as the crucial buffer zone between the outraged anti-Jimmy Savile campaign on the front page and the teenage tits on page three.

October. Netmums pronounces feminism dead, on the somewhat amusing basis that only one in seven women self-defines as a feminist – giving it a nationwide “membership” numbering just under 4.5 million … more than ten times that of the Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat parties combined.

November. PlayStation decides it’s a great idea to advertise its new Vita console using a picture of a woman with two sets of breasts and no head. I’ll just repeat that one. They advertise it using a picture of a woman. With two sets of breasts. And no head.

December. Just as I’m worrying that nobody will be noteworthily sexist enough in the first few days of December to meet my deadline, FHM rides to my rescue in spectacular style with its astounding, assault-normalising advice that readers shouldn’t borrow socks from their girlfriend/mother/victim. Cheers, FHM! Job done.

(via woolfisms)

iamateenagefeminist:

baconbeernboobs:

getyourpokeon:

okdouchebag: hell-is-okcupid:

Because women don’t read classic novels.

HOW DID YOU GO ABOUT FINDING IT? wtf laughing so hard

you are a woman how did you get access to reading material?

tell me every detail

i just want to know how women work

Women know how to read?!?!

You just know this guy thought he was giving a compliment too. 

THIS SHIT HAPPENS ALL THE TIME

(via iamayoungfeminist)

(via moderngirlblitz)

themcalistershow:

*TRIGGER WARNING FOR RAPE CULTURE*

I know a lot of guys tend to get really defensive and angry when women are on their guard about sexual assault, and act like they’re personally being accused of being a rapist. But dude, here’s the thing: it’s not personal, its statistics: MORE THAN HALF of college men ADMIT to being potential rapists!

Guys. that’s why we need to take responsibility for this shit. That’s why we need to confront and call out attitudes and ideas and language and jokes that promote rape culture or the idea that rape is ever acceptable in any context. That’s why we can’t be silent. Unfortunately, this information *will not be taken as seriously by men coming from women*, so we need to be the ones to hold ourselves and each other accountable.

Every time someone makes a rape joke or uses the word “rape” casually or says something that justifies rape, and it’s in a group of *more than TWO people*, there is a statistically strong chance that there is someone in that group who could actually commit a rape, and, in hearing one of his fellow men say something that condones or trivializes it, and hearing his other fellow men say NOTHING to condemn it, will feel more secure in knowing that this is something he could get away with.

As a society, we tend to artificially divide people into “rapists” and “non-rapists”, as if they’re discrete categories of people, where one is composed of slobbering, predatory, psychopaths, and the other is composed of clean-cut, upstanding, respectful gentlemen. This is not the case at all.

There are a lot of guys who are potential rapists. Guys who are extremely susceptible to cultural influence, who could easily recognize the importance of respecting women and consent if placed in a community that stresses that, but could just as easily become the type of guy who’d willfully take advantage of a girl who’s falling-down or passed-out drunk if placed in a community that dehumanizes women and treats women as targets and justifies rape.

When these guys repeatedly hear things that make them more COMFORTABLE with the idea of rape—and yes, every single time a rape joke is made and goes unchallenged, or “rape” is used as a casual synonym for “defeat” or “do really well”, and this goes unchallenged, or women are treated as objects, whether of decoration or of sexual conquest, and this goes unchallenged, it makes people more comfortable with the idea of rape—it makes them more likely to actually commit a rape at some point.

It may be hard to believe, but standing up and saying “This is not acceptable” when people talk this way could actually make a difference between someone getting raped and not getting raped.

That’s why we have to put our foot down EVERY SINGLE TIME WE HEAR THIS SHIT.

 “It’s so bizarre to me because, I work with a lot of men and then I do these press tours with them and nobody ever looks at Chris Hemsworth and goes, ‘Wow, you play such a strong guy in Thor!’ Nobody does that, you know what I mean? But when we are conflicted and we play characters that find themselves in circumstances where we have to to find our strenght or just something in order to survive, like all of a sudden we are such strong women.” — Charlize Theron on playing strong women

(via feministbecky)