Yesterday my five year old (read that again, I said five… it’s important) and I were in the car and learning about directions. North, South, East, West. My rear view mirror has an indicator in it and every time we turned we talked about which way we were headed. She seemed like she was struggling to remember even after getting it right several times. She’s been doing this more frequently with a lot of topics she knows backwards and forwards and it’s frustrating but I try not to let her know I’m frustrated. We turned again and the indicator changed to SW and she immediately shouts out “South West!!” I get super excited and congratulate her because YaY she gets it but then I hear a muffled “Oh No.” from the back seat and look to see her covering her mouth with her hand like she said a bad word.
After a lot of questioning about what the heck just happened, she finally admits.
“I didn’t mean to be smart. Girls aren’t supposed to be smart.”
Y'all. I almost broke down into tears right then and there. I asked her what she meant by that, girls are smart! Mommy is smart right? My FIVE year old was getting so upset because she had let it slip she knew things and I didn’t seem to be able to make any difference. Eventually, we got to the kicker….
“But boys don’t like girls who are smart.” She tells me, clearly distraught.
“Fuck boys.”
This, at least, gets the little light of my life to laugh again. She knows mommy has said a bad word and it always makes her giggle. I’m seething in rage that she has been taught to hide her intelligence already, but at least I’m not keeping her mood down in the dumps… I guess.
I’m not one hundred percent sure where to go from here. Honestly, I’m not even ten percent sure. I let the topic drop yesterday because I was too upset to make rational decisions and we went home and played Snipper Clippers… a game that requires you to think… and worked on the puzzle she got for Easter.
And then I read her a story about a bunch of puppies trying to feed themselves while their owner is sick because she is FIVE and can’t read on her own yet. She can’t read, but she knows boys don’t like girls who are smart.
We try so hard, to teach her to think, to problem solve. We encourage her when she’s interested in ‘brainy’ things like the set of gears she loves to tinker with. But I can’t control every aspect of her life. I work. My husband works. In a few months she will be in kindergarten and around even more people and children of various ages than she is now at day care.
And I can’t help but think about this child, who KNOWS boys don’t like girls who are smart…
being forced to be constantly accessible damages your boundaries and ability to make boundaries. I don’t care what anyone says about “it’s 2017 and you should be able to text back unless you’re in the hospital or the movies”. no one is entitled to anyone 24/7. it’s fucking unhealthy at best and manipulative and abusive at worst to expect this of someone.
give people their space. make sure your people give you your space.
At my last company, one day someone in accounting approached me at lunch and quietly told me I need to ask for a raise because I was way underpaid.
They gave me a number to shoot for. It was about twice than what I had been making at the time.
So I went online, did some research, found some figures backing up my claim, put it all together and went to my boss.
I got what I asked for.
If it hadn’t been for that person in accounting telling me I was way underpaid, I’d have never known. I went from barely scraping by to being able to have a savings account and getting all my debts paid thanks to them.
You should at least check sites like salary.com to start the process of seeing what you should be making.
this story is so inspiring. 5 years ago she thought she was gonna lose her life due to a patriarchal society that would rather have her dead than acheive an education. the world needs more people like Malala.
The stabbing at a McDonald’s was literally an employee stabbing a manager, and had nothing to do with Rick and Morty, or with Szechuan sauce. [1] [2] [3]
You can stop with the petty mass hysteria now, and maybe look shit up before you go around believing everything you see on tumblr, because you know damn well that everyone lies their asses off around here for notes, especially if they can demonize people they have a grudge against in the process.
Every Sunday since Hurricane Maria ripped through Puerto Rico, Ada Reyes and her four children have walked half an hour to church. Down a winding road, dodging fallen trees and debris, they walk past cement houses still bearing flood marks, and finally cross the Vivi — a small river in Utuado, a city in the central mountain region.
The Iglesia Cristiana Monte Olivar church is small: one room, with a few rows of chairs all facing two podiums up front. There are about 30 people, all standing when we arrive. Two associate pastors offer a prayer and members pray over each other, some in tears and embracing each other as they pray.
It’s been a hard few weeks in Utuado. Many roads nearby are still too dangerous to drive because of heavy flooding and strewn debris. Schools remain closed. Businesses that are open, including a Walgreen’s and an AutoZone, are powered by generators and have long lines and full parking lots seeding traffic jams.
People here are about to start their third week without electricity or water. Nearly 90 percent of the island is still without power.
““Die mad about it” is my favorite shade ever. Now stop making women justify wanting birth control coverage because of all the other health care benefits the Pill has.”
DeAndre Harris is a 20 year old black man who was subjected to a vicious armed beat-down by Nazis who marched in Charlottesville on August 12. Two of the men who beat him have been charged with “malicious wounding” and are being held without bail; two others have not been arrested yet.
One of the men who beat Harris tried to get the Charlottesville police to arrest Harris as well. When the Charlottesville police declined, the Nazi found a sympathetic magistrate judge (the clowns of the US judicial system) to issue a warrant for Harris’s arrest.
Harris’s attorney is making arrangements for Harris to surrender himself.
ive been reading a book that basically explains how so-called “brain differences” between the genders is the result of gendered socialization and not the cause of it. i honestly expected the book to be very cis-centric but its actually the opposite, the author stresses that testimony from trans ppl is actually indispensable because we’ve, in a sense, “lived both experiences”
more cis feminists should have this mindset
one of the first examples that she uses to introduce her point about how perception by others can shape a person’s performance actually uses a trans woman. it explains that as a certain trans woman became to be seen as a woman more and more frequently, the ppl arond her eventually started viewing her as being ill equipped for tasks that they did not bother her about pre-transition. eventually she even found herself underperforming in these tasks herself.
My whole problem with the “I do makeup for ME! I’m EMPOWERED when I put on makeup!” discourse is that it completely erases the fact that women aren’t actually given the ability to MAKE that choice. It’s impossible to say that you’re doing it for self empowerment, or that “if it wasn’t so much fun I wouldn’t do it” because that’s just not true. Women who enjoy doing their makeup and women who don’t enjoy doing it both have equal pressure to wear makeup. Whether you enjoy the process or not, you will be taken less seriously as a woman, valued less, respected less, considered ‘unprofessional’ at work, etc. if you choose not to wear makeup. Men aren’t faced with the decision to get an extra hour of sleep or to be taken seriously. By writing it off as a cool empowering fun thing women do as an exciting entertaining hobby we’re just…. erasing the entire institution of makeup and of beauty standards that seriously harm women. If you enjoy doing makeup that’s great, that’s fine, and you should keep it up! But wearing makeup in the first place wasn’t ever your choice. We don’t GET a choice. I hate people saying “oh you don’t have to wear it! If you don’t like makeup don’t put it on!” As if I’m expected to just be cool with the way the world will treat me if I don’t conform to modern beauty standards! If you’re worrying about your eyebrows or lip plumpness or skin tone evenness that’s not you making a free willed cool decision to feel insecure and concerned about facial features that men never have to think twice about. That’s you thinking in a way you’ve been trained to think! And people wanna pretend that putting on makeup is Empowering… what the hell is empowering about making a choice that’s been forced on us since we were old enough to be seen as sexual objects lmfao… that’s bullshit that doesn’t empower me and having to give up valuable time and money and energy that men are never asked to give up makes me feel like shit!! It makes me miserable! It makes me dread every single morning because I know I’m gonna be putting forward all this bullshit labor just to exist and be taken seriously in my stupid body
A+ post.
I would like to add, as well, that this sudden emergence of make up being cool and empowering for women comes directly from make up companies and Sephora, in particular. When I worked at Sephora they told us, in a hundred different and equally veiled ways, that the trick to getting people to buy something is to make them want it. When you need something you become restricted by the thing, but when you want something you’re exercising your free will. We were told we were “celebrating beauty” and making people comfortable in their own skin but in reality we were slinging $30 concealers at 15 year old girls who don’t understand that the skin around their eyes is thinner and therefore always darker. We were pushing eyeliner and mascara in “fun” colors to get young girls into make up under the guise of self expression. And the women who worked with me would go on and on about how their make up ritual was for them and how it was their “war paint” but then they would confess they felt uncomfortable leaving the house without a full face on.
Most annoying to me was the short lived emergence of the naturally flawless skin trend. When I started at Sephora the trend was matte everything, full coverage foundation and strong controuring. It was a lot of make up to wear everyday and when summer came there was the biggest swing I’ve ever seen in trends where girls wanted BB creams and sheer foundations, no contouring, just the bare bones. From that we noticed a lot of people coming in for skincare. There were girls walking through the store with huge water bottles asking for sunscreen and face washes and Sephora was having NONE of that. It felt like a step in the right direction, taking care of your skin, protecting it from the sun, drinking water, and most importantly, it felt like the trends we’re moving away from “cover your flaws” to more of a self-care aspect (I’m very aware that the same motivations were behind the skincare trend but it wasn’t as sinister feeling).
Sephora soon came out with the Celebrating Beauty focus where we were supposed to push the empowering effects of make up to people who weren’t in the store for make up. “Oh I see you’re buying a face wash for dry skin; let me show you this foundation that hydrates and gives a natural glow.” The goal was to get people buy make up in large quantities, not skin care. Sephora actively quashed teen girls’ attempts to take a step in the right direction by telling them make up is empowering. They are financially invested in the belief that make up is empowering.
damn this addition that was added to my post from my main blog… great commentary from someone who has actually worked in the industry and seen the way it works to harm women first hand
