Life is life that deserves to exist for its own sake, not because we find it aesthetically pleasing or "useful".
Saddest thing ever is reading an academic paper about a threatened or declining species where you can tell the author is really trying to come up with ways the animal could hypothetically be useful to humans in a desperate attempt to get someone to care. Nobody gives a shit about the animals that “don’t affect” us and it seriously breaks my heart
Concept from a few days ago that has been ROTTING my brain. BIKER ANGEL BABYYY!!! Something I didn't know I needed in life-
Hes so cool and like, idk I just need to consume more media where angel is being badass. DGMW!!! I LOVE HIS PRETTY FEM SIDE. But also I think ppl forget he's a chaos maker/ prankster/ turf war participator who will run you down without hesitation if in a fight uvu
speaking as a historian of the 19th and 20th centuries, it's not the "tradwife lifestyle" we hate. It's the fact that women didn't have the right to vote until 1917, or the ability to own bank accounts until 1971, and STILL don't have the Equal Rights Amendment that's been held up since 1973 that would prevent things like pay gaps and other biases! We hate the fact that people didn't have the choice, and there are those out there who actively want to take it away!
thoughts on "tradwives" as a 19th-century social historian
It's great until it's not.
It's great until he develops an addiction and starts spending all the money on it.
It's great until you realize he's abusive and hid it long enough to get you totally in his power (happened to my great-great-aunt Irene).
It's great until he gets injured and can't work anymore.
It's great until he dies and your options are "learn a marketable skill fast" or "marry the first eligible man you can find."
It's great until he wants child #7 and your body just can't take another pregnancy, but you can't leave or risk desertion because he's your meal ticket.
It's great until he tries to make you run a brothel as a get-rich-quick scheme and deserts you when you refuse, leaving your sisters to desperately fundraise so your house doesn't get foreclosed on (happened to my great-great-aunt Mamie).
It's great until you want to leave but you can't. It's great until you want to do something else with your life but you can't. It's great. Until. It's. Not.
I won't lie to you and say nobody was ever happy that way. Plenty of women have been, and part of feminism is acknowledging that women have the right to choose that sort of life if they want to.
But flinging yourself into it wholeheartedly with no sort of safety net whatsoever, especially in a period where it's EXTREMELY easy for him to leave you- as it should be; no-fault divorce saves lives -is naive at best and dangerous at worst.
Have your own means of support. Keep your own bank account; we fought hard enough to be allowed them. Gods willing, you never need that safety net, but too many women have suffered because they needed it and it wasn't there.
whenever i'm trying to talk myself out of buying something i don't need i always hear my old russian professor's voice echoing in my head: "WHAT??? WILL YOU DIE THE RICHEST MAN IN THE GRAVEYARD?" and then i make an unwise financial decision
The most soul crushing thing is being in your mid to late 20's and comparing yourself with your peers. One of them is married, one has an amazing job, one just bought a house, one is pregnant, one is very successful. And you look at yourself and you have none of these accomplishments, you still feel like a kid inside, you're the same age but really you feel so much younger, so behind. You're living in different worlds, different lives, so far apart. And you observe them and all you want is to be like them, all grown, all independant and functional. And then the fear creeps in: What if I will never get there? What if my mental issues are always gonna keep me in the same place? And that feeling, that huge fear and doubt and incapability, I wonder if that's what they meant when they talk about a "quarter life crisis". You're gonna get there, in your own time. This is a normal experience millions of people our age have and have always had. It will be ok.
Hiraeth, homesickness for a place that no longer exists or is entirely fictional.
are u ever sick w longing. and i don't just mean romantic longing. i mean longing for a place you barely get to see, longing for friends you no longer have, longing for feelings you might have left behind in your childhood, longing for creativity, longing for a rich and more expansive life, longing for less inhibition. longing for more passion. longing for ur life to be so incandescent w something it thaws all the frost in ur bones. are u ever so consumed w it it rends ur heart in two. do u understand me
"What about people who do [X] on purpose?" Yes, even them. Did I stutter when I said "EVERYONE" DESERVES A HOME?!
if you want to actually start to end homelessness, you need to give homeless people unconditional homes, including when we use them to do drugs or sit around drinking. either housing is unconditional or it isn’t
someone sitting at home alone, an active alcoholic, squandering your charity, drinking all day is better situation than a street homeless alcoholic. someone using drugs in your charity house is better than them doing the same w no shelter
most of you would not like most street homeless people, I definitely don’t and didn’t when I was street homeless. for every one person who uses unconditional shelter to turn themselves around, someone else will do jack shit and very slowly, if ever, work through the issues that made them homeless, will maybe never be able to live independently. still better than street homelessness, still worth doing. ultimately either you believe that shelter should be universal or you don’t
homeless people actually can’t be rehabilitated if you want to end homelessness. we either affirm the right to shelter for the worst drunken, lying, filthy, cheating, self destructive homeless people that exist, genuinely irredeemable wankers, or we concede that shelter is not a right
Also when people talk about this stuff do they know a sign on a door isn't going to stop someone determined to commit a crime? Like the level of insecurities and stupidity around this stuff is beyond confusing.
the idea of public restrooms as "women's spaces" continues to confound me. you know who I hope is in a public bathroom when I go in?? no one. I would prefer no one else be in the bathroom. and if someone else is in the bathroom I am going to ignore them as much as possible. I did not go into the bathroom to connect with other women. I went into the bathroom to piss and/or shit. it's a toilet's space, not a women's space. shut the fuck up and let trans people piss and shit in peace. let's all continue to avoid eye contact with each other and any and all interaction in the toilet's space.
I think the reason a lot of leftists struggle with disability justice is that they haven't moved past the concept that discrimination isn't bad because it's objectively "wrong." yes, sexists are objectively wrong when they try to claim women are dumber than men. yes, antisemites are objectively wrong that jewish people are inherently greedy and run the state. yes, racists are wrong when they try to claim that white people are the superior race. and so on.
but then with disabled people, there are a lot of objective truths to the discrimination we face. people with IDs/LDs do fall behind and struggle with certain concepts. physically disabled people are often weaker and less capable of performing demanding tasks than able bodied people. many of us with mental illnesses are more reckless and less responsible. a lot of us are dependent on others and do not contribute much "worth".
and guess what? disabled people still deserve a place in the world. disabled people still deserve the supports they need. because they are people, and that should be enough to support them and believe they deserve a place at the table.
if your only rebuttal against discrimination is its objective inaccuracies, you are meeting bigots where they are at. you are validating the very concept that if and when people are truly incapable of being equal to the majority, that means they are worth less. this causes some leftists to then try to deny the objective realities of disabled people and/or become ableist themselves.
your rallying behind marginalized groups should start and end with the fact that people are completely worthy of life and equity, because they are fellow human beings and that should, frankly, be enough.