Heaven forbid I sit down and not hurt myself by standing and falling over.
What an asshole.
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- I don't have sex.
- Patriarchy: Prude.
- I have sex.
- Patriarchy: Slut.
- I have safe sex.
- Patriarchy: Prude and slut at the same time.
- I got pregnant from having unprotected sex.
- Patriarchy: Dumbass slut.
- I got an abortion.
- Patriarchy: Baby killer.
- I had the kid.
- Patriarchy: Welfare queen.
- I got married, then had sex, then had a kid.
- Patriarchy: K, but we'll pay you less and blame your being a mother.
- I got married, then had sex, and became a full time mother.
- Patriarchy: You're a welfare queen too.
- I got married, then had sex, then worked at the same time.
- Patriarchy: You're a terrible mother, and don't ask us for help with daycare. Get back in the kitchen.
- I don't care what you think.
- Patriarchy: What a bitch.
- What the fuck can I do to make you happy, patriarchy?
- Patriarchy: lol what a doormat.
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setfabulazerstomaximumcaptain:
Okay so I know this is kinda taboo but anyways.
Frida Kahlo: Not too easy on the eyes. I mean she’s got the lady-mo and the monobrow thing going on. She didn’t know where to put her blush or what shade lipstick would obviously suit her skin tone. Really, she’s a bit of a wreck. So this got me to thinking. What would have happened if her girlfriends had done the right thing and taken her to a beautician, (which clearly needed to happen)? I did a subtle re-paint over the top of her original self-portrait to “conceptualize” what it would have looked like if she had been whisked off to Beauty Works or the likes….I didn’t want to alter the integrity of the original painting too much. What do you reckon?
Did you really just skin-lighten a Frida Kahlo self portait
and remove her facial hair
and call her “a wreck”
and then say she couldn’t choose a fucking lipstick to suit her skin tone
after you changed her skin tone
how can one person be everything that is wrong with the world at once
I don’t think she changed her skin tone but still.. ! What the fuck are you doing? Who cares about making her beautiful by western beauty industry standards. You’re going against everything that makes her really beautiful. Frida had a bunch of fucked up shit happen to her, unibrow and all. And she wore her facial hair with pride. It’s part of who she was and what made her a strong, proud, awesome woman and symbol of feminism. The fact that you consider her friends not taking her to a salon to ‘fix’ her ‘flaws’, wrong. Only serves to show how shallow you really are. You don’t have to buy in to the shit they sell you to be beautiful. And fuck you, photoshop pictures of yourself next time.
I beg to differ.
Removing the lowlights and expanding the midtones and highlights to cover previously dark areas in order to “even out” the skintone counts as “lightening”.
Here’s a half-and-half comparison to better see what was done here:
This is basically what most hydroquinone skin-bleaching creams are touted to do.
The audacity of this person to try and “fix” Frida. I cannot.
It’s a white man that did this.
-_______-
And it’s sad because by his (original) artwork, he does seem talented. Why is it that such talented people do such terrible things?
Because white supremacy.
Fuck anyone who thinks this is okay.
The fucking white male privilege, the sexism and the racism…fucking astounding.
-Redd, who is still pissed as fuck over this bullshit.
Let’s not forget that he:
- Thinks there is a formula for “pretty girls”. [x]
- Portrays racial stereotypes. (Note that he usually portrays people from other countries at labourers in field, and rarely shows people from other countries in powerful roles.) [x][x]
- Thinks having the “correct proportions” on a woman means taking away her muscles and making her facial expressions soft instead of badass. [x]
- Uses gender-stereotypical superhero poses. [x][x]
ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME YOU PIECE OF SHIT
Fuck this, way to ruin a perfectly good piece of art and say incredibly sexist and racist shit about a woman who knew way more about the world than the OP ever will.
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» xoJane: Dads, You Don't Own Your Daughters
Telling daughters that their fathers own them and have the rights to their bodies is creepy. And it sets up for the eventual transfer of bigger, even scarier ideas. Like that men in general own them and are entitled to their bodies. Like that husbands have the right to do whatever they want, whenever they want, because the wife’s father has transferred ownership.
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"The problem here isn’t the women who don’t wear makeup. It’s the cultural expectation that women must wear makeup if they want to look their best. I’m no fan of compulsory gender attributes and I’m also just not down with the idea that “your best” always involves “makeup” for every single face."
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"If a woman writes about herself, she’s a narcissist. If a man does the same, he’s describing the human condition."
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» Five Stars for Amazon Reviewers: Real People Hilariously Take "Bic For Her" to Task
Oh my God you guys, now that Bic makes pens I can use, I can finally write! Which means I can tell you all about the hilarious crowd-sourced comedy happening on Amazon UK. Real people displayed some of the best feminist humor I’ve seen, thus winning the internet for the entire year of 2012. The reviews of Bic for Her pens capture the shock and awe of all the women who have never used a pen before now, the women who are using them as vibrators and tampons because that is the only reason why the name would make even a modicum of sense, and the wonder of men as they transform into delicate little daisies just by touching these cutesy purple pens. I almost couldn’t finish writing you all about it because I couldn’t stop reading these amazing reviews. Apart from them being funnier than all of mainstream sitcoms ever in the world, they also give me faith that humans can spot gendered bullshit in marketing. In a world where people are constantly mansplaining technology, plumbing, photography and writing to us like we don’t already know, it’s nice to see that there are people out there who understand the tropes and stereotypes levied against women well enough to write some funnies without even being asked to. Here are just a few screenshots (and here are a few more), but the treasure is endless. Head on over and watch the side-splitting hilarity parade march all over this crappy gendered marketing.
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film about a group of men getting into shenanigans= “comedy”
film about a group of women getting into shenanigans= “chick flick”film about a friendship between two men= “buddy flick”
film about a friendship between two women= “chick flick”emotional film about father/son relationships= “drama”
emotional film about mother/daughter relationships= “chick flick”film about a young man finding identity= “coming of age”
film about a young woman finding identity= “chick flick” -
Missing Aboriginal Women: Canada’s Secret Shame
Angeline Eileen Pete, 28, reported missing from British Columbia in May. Roberta Dawn McIvor, 32, found murdered near Lake Winnipeg in July. Kimberley Nolin Napess, 15, last seen in Quebec City in August. And two Friday’s ago, Verna Simard, 50, dead after plunging from the sixth floor window of her residence in Vancouver.
These are not isolated, unconnected incidents. The women are all aboriginal, and their deaths and disappearances are the fruit of a rotten, unresolved Canadian legacy. In a country of deep pride but tolerance much shallower than acknowledged, these crimes are part of a secret shame: more than 600 aboriginal women missing or murdered in the last thirty years.
Killed in their homes and in the streets, on and off reservations, by acquaintances and by strangers, aboriginal women are the victims of an unmistakable epidemic of violence. They are five times more likely to die violently than their non-aboriginal counterparts. In northern BC, so many have disappeared on notorious highway 16 that it has been given a chilling name: the Highway of Tears. The Canadian government’s expressions of official feeling scarcely mask a truth written out in their policies and inaction: these women are disposable.
If 600 white middle class women went missing it would be treated like a national crisis. A single such disappearance triggers emergency advertisements on television and radio news. An aboriginal woman’s disappearance, on the other hand, receives no comparable attention…
It is not sexism or racism alone that is to blame. It is an entire system of inhumane relations with aboriginal peoples, upheld by a society that has swallowed the country’s forests, rivers, minerals and their original owners and spit them out as strangers in their own land. Dispossessed and subjected to wrenching poverty, culturally demeaned and lacking access to services and housing, aboriginal women are left exposed and vulnerable to all-too-ordinary predators. Predators who act assuming their victims will not be missed. Predators who believe they will escape with impunity.
Denied justice at every turn, it is little wonder these women’s families and their supporters have turned to public protest. Twenty years ago, the first demonstrations in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside [see video] — ground zero for stolen lives — drew only a handful of women. Objects were thrown at them from passing cars. Now, thousands are marching in cities across the country; a movement has been born. Its demands include a federal inquiry, anti-racist education for police officers, and funding for front-line organizations that offer culturally-appropriate shelter, support and counseling.
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» Why feminists should be concerned with the impending revision of the DSM - By Julia Serano
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) has been called the “bible of mental illness” because it lists and defines all of the “official” psychiatric diagnoses according to the American Psychiatric Association. The DSM is in the early stages of undergoing its 5th major revision; each previous revision has seen the total number of mental disorders recognized (some might say invented) by the APA greatly increase. Last year, trans activists were particularly concerned to learn that Ken Zucker and Ray Blanchard had been named to play critical lead roles in determining the language of the DSM sections focusing on gender and sexuality, especially given that these researchers are well known for forwarding theories and therapies that are especially pathologizing and stigmatizing to gender-variant people.
Blanchard has recently presented some of his suggestions to revise the “Paraphilia” section of the DSM. In the past, this section has generally received little attention from feminists, as it has been primarily limited to several sexual crimes (e.g., pedophilia, frotteurism and exhibitionism) and a handful of other generally consensual but unnecessarily stigmatized sexual acts (such as fetishism and BDSM) that are considered “atypical” by sex researchers. However, there are two aspects of the proposed Paraphilia section revision that should be of great concern to feminists, as well as anyone else who is interested in gender and sexual equality.
Expanding “Paraphilia”First, Blanchard is proposing a significant expansion of the DSM’s definition of “paraphilia” to include:
“any intense and persistent sexual interest other than sexual interest in genital stimulation or preparatory fondling with phenotypically normal, consenting adult human partners.”
The first concern here is the term “phenotypically normal” (meaning “normal” with regards to observable anatomical or behavioral traits). Thus, according to this definition, attraction to any person deemed by sex researchers to be “abnormal” or “atypical” could conceivably be diagnosed as paraphilic. So, do you happen to be attracted to, or in a relationship with, someone who is differently-abled or differently-sized? Or someone who is gender-variant in some way? Well congratulations, you may now be diagnosed with a paraphilia!
Seriously.Blanchard and other like-minded sex researchers have coined words like Gynandromorphophilia (attraction to trans women), Andromimetophilia (attraction to trans men), Abasiophilia (attraction to people who are physically disabled), Acrotomophilia (attraction to amputees), Gerontophilia (attraction to elderly people), Fat Fetishism (attraction to fat people), etc., and have forwarded them in the medical literature to denote the presumed “paraphilic” nature of such attractions. This tendency reinforces the cultural belief that young, thin, able-bodied cisgender women and men are the only legitimate objects of sexual desire, and that you must be mentally disordered in some way if you are attracted to someone who falls outside of this ideal. It’s bad enough that such cultural norms exist in the first place, but to codify them in the DSM is a truly terrifying prospect.
Another frightening aspect of Blanchard’s proposal is that any sexual interest other than “genital stimulation or preparatory fondling” is now, by definition, a paraphilia. In his presentation, he claimed that paraphilias should include all “erotic interests that are not focused on copulatory or precopulatory behaviors, or the equivalent behaviors in same-sex adult partners.” Copulatory is defined as related to coitus or sexual intercourse (i.e., penetration sex). So, essentially, all forms of sexual arousal and expression that are not centered around penetration sex may now be considered paraphilias.
So, do you and your partner occasionally role-play or talk dirty to one another over the phone? Or engage in arousing play that is not intended to necessarily lead to “doing the deed”? Do you masturbate? Do you get a sexual charge from wearing a particularly sexy outfit or performing any act that falls outside of “genital stimulation or preparatory fondling”? Well, then congratulations, you can be diagnosed with a paraphilia!
“Transvestic Disorder,” Gender Inequality and the Sexualization of Feminine Gender Expression.Blanchard also wants to retain (with minor tweaking) the “Transvestic Fetishism” diagnosis from the previous DSM Paraphilia section; the new diagnosis is to be called “Transvestic Disorder.” Like it’s predecessor, it applies to “heterosexual males” who experience “recurrent, intense sexually arousing fantasies, sexual urges, or behaviors involving cross-dressing.” As Kelly Winters of GID Reform Advocates points out:
“Curiously, women and gay men are free to wear whatever clothing they chose without a label of mental illness. This criterion serves to enforce a stricter standard of conformity for straight males than women or gay men. Its dual standard not only reflects the social privilege of heterosexual males in American culture, but promotes it. One implication is that biological males who emulate women, with their lower social status, are presumed irrational and mentally disordered, while biological females who emulate males are not. A second implication stereotypically associates femininity and cross-dressing with male homosexuality and serves to punish straight males who transgress this stereotype.”
The “heterosexual male” nomenclature should also be of concern to many trans women, as Blanchard (and like-minded psychologists) routinely mis-describe lesbian-identified trans women as “heterosexual male transsexuals” in the medical literature. Since the Transvestic Disorder diagnosis does not explicitly exempt transsexuals, then a queer-identified trans woman (such as myself) could theoretically be diagnosed as having “Transvestic Disorder” any time that I have *any kind* of sexual urge while wearing women’s clothing. Since I wear women’s clothing pretty much every day of my life these days, my sexuality would presumably be considered perpetually transvestically disordered according to this diagnosis.
Kelley Winters has also written at length about how the vagueness of Transvestic Fetishism/Disorder wording enables the diagnosis of individuals who do not experience any sexual arousal in association with wearing women’s clothing. She argues:
“It serves to sexualize a diagnosis that does not clearly require a sexual context. Crossdressing by males very often represents a social expression of an inner sense of identity. In fact, the clinical literature cites many cases, considered diagnosable under transvestic fetishism, which present no sexual motivation for cross-dressing and by no means represent fetishism.”
We live in a heterosexual-male-centric culture, where femaleness and feminine gender expression are routinely sexualized, and where sexual symbolism is projected onto women’s clothing. For this reason, people (including psychologists such as Blanchard) regularly sexualize trans women, male crossdressers, and others on the trans feminine spectrum, and attribute sexual motives to us, even when no such motives exist. Thus, the Transvestic Disorder diagnosis both sexualizes people on the trans feminine spectrum, while simultaneously reinforcing the societal sexualization of women and feminine gender expression more generally.
Sexism and the DSM Paraphilia Section
Proponents of the DSM Paraphilia section would argue that paraphilia diagnoses are only applicable when the individual in question exhibits “significant distress or impairment” over their sexual urges. This ignores the fact that many happy and healthy individuals are sometimes diagnosed with paraphilias. Further, the mere fact that Transvestic Fetishism, Masochism and Sadism have been listed in the DSM (under the same category as several nonconsensual sexual crimes, no less) is regularly cited by those who wish to delegitimize or legally discriminate against male crossdressers and people who practice consensual BDSM. Labeling any form of gender or sexual expression as a “mental disorder” is necessarily stigmatizing and ignores the vast amount of gender and sexual variation that exists in the world.
It was not that long ago that Homosexuality and Nymphomania were listed in the “Sexual Deviation” (which was later renamed “Paraphilia”) section of the DSM. They were removed, in part, due to public pressure, as both diagnoses only served to reinforce cultural double standards (i.e., the idea that same-sex attraction is less legitimate that heterosexual attraction, and that women should exhibit less sexual interest than men, respectively). We have a word to describe double standards that exist with regards to sex, gender or sexuality–it’s called sexism.The proposed revision of the DSM Paraphilia section is sexist in numerous ways. We, as feminists, should fight to have *all* forms of sexual expression that occur between consenting adults removed from the DSM entirely. And we should especially fight for the removal of “Transvestic Disorder” on the grounds that it sexualizes feminine gender expression and reinforces rigid cis-hetero-male-centric gender norms.
What you can do to help:
1) raise awareness about this issue in feminist circles.
2) contact the American Psychiatric Association and share your concern with them.
3) if you live in the San Francisco Bay Area, please come out to the protest of the upcoming American Psychiatric Association conference on Monday, May 18th between 6:00pm to 7:30pm in front of the Moscone Center. This protest will focus primarily on the removal of the trans-focused DSM diagnoses Gender Identity Disorder (GID) and Transvestic Disorder. While the GID diagnosis is of great concern to trans activists (including me), I did not discuss it here because it is not listed as a Paraphilia, and because (to the best of my knowledge) no information has been released regarding proposed revisions to GID in the next DSM.
For more information about the Paraphilia section of the DSM, I encourage you to read DSM-IV-TR and the Paraphilias: An Argument for Removal by Charles Moser and Peggy J. Kleinplatz.
For more info about “Transvestic Disorder,” check out Transvestic Disorder and Policy Dysfunction in the DSM-V by Kelly Winters. (Also, her blog and book provide excellent critiques of both the Transvestic Disorder and GID diagnoses).
Julia Serano is an Oakland, California-based writer, spoken word performer, trans activist, biologist, and author of Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity.
