Did anybody see this yet? MTV’s jab at White Privelage

That is some professional level shade right there.

WTF

they’re really showing this on national television. what a time to be alive

Put that down

a thief

Daniell Koepke  (via seulray)

I’m deleting

I am Louise 

“Don’t use our culture as poor inspiration for future lines and then proceed to not hire PoC as models”

Can we stop throwing people with physical disabilities under the bus in an effort to remove the stigma against mental illness? 

I’m sick of seeing these comics and posts saying “Why don’t we treat those with mental disabilities like those with physical disabilities.” Not only does it completely ignore those who experience both, but it insinuates that people with physical disabilities have their needs met and are treated equally when that’s not true. It erases the stigma, abuse, neglect, violence, discrimination and inacessability that we face everyday. People tell us that our problems are all in our head, and even people in the medical field don’t think that a lot physical disabilities are real which leads to us receiving even worse care or being completely ignored. 

Quit silencing what we go through in order to make a point. Seriously, knock it off.

http://ohnotheydidnt.livejournal.com/50076507.html?thread=8548601691#t8548601691

Monthly reminder that Joss Whedon is just a really cool dude/feminist :DDDDD

If this is all true (because while Live Journal isn’t the most trustworthy source of information, Charisma has confirmed a good deal of this herself), then Whedon treats fictional women ten times better than he treats real women. 

Unlike a lot of Tumblr, I don’t subscribe to the morally absolutist, purist philosophy wherein which one mistake magically negates all your achievements, nor do I like the hivemind aspect of this website where people are sorted into a oversimplified binary of good and bad with no room for nuance or relativism. But this is grossly petty, unprofessional, dare I say abusive behavior courtesy of Whedon, and I’ve lost a lot of respect for him having found out about this.

The irony is that in assassinating Cordelia’s character as revenge for “ruining” his season, Whedon ruined the season himself. Because I don’t know about you, but in my opinion the obvious attempts at humiliating the actress and ruining her character made the season worse by tenfold. 

Shout out to Charisma Carpenter for remaining classy and professional even after being treated so childishly (if not vilely) by a boss she was loyal to for eight years. 

(Wonderful eloquence from drusillathekiller as usual.)

It’s sad this doesn’t seem to be more well known. (It blows my mind a bit that this is new information but, of course, it’s not something that would be well known to new viewers.) I don’t hate Joss but he is by no means perfect and this is a very good example of this. Tbh, I think Joss gets far more credit for feminist work than is due - after all, it doesn’t matter how many great female characters you write if you can’t treat real women well. I agree that people shouldn’t be judged on one mistake but this was something that happened over a fair amount of time & is completely inexcusable. However, Joss & Charisma seem to have made up so it can be assumed that Joss has apologised for his behaviour. At least, I hope he has. Charisma was treated appallingly. It’s a pity he hasn’t chosen to make a public apology about this though.

I assume the reason this isn’t more well known is because it came out after ATS went off-air. (At least, I don’t remember this being common knowledge till afterwards?)

Because there is always this.  If Joss wanted complete control over every character’s body and hairstyle, he should have written novels.

I’m going to research this further because if it’s true, what Whedon did was harassment, emotional and physical abuse and discrimination based on a federally protected attribute (a short-term disability covered by the Pregnancy Discrimination Act and enforced by the U.S. Department of Labor). It’s illegal on top of being inhumane, and absolutely unacceptable. I don’t care about his “creative vision” or his “seasonal arc”. In the end it’s a work of FICTION, a freakin’ TV show. It does not trump real, human lives.

Reblogging for excellent commentary.

To put this in perspective, imagine what a boss bullying his employees in such a manner would look like in literally any other line of work. Imagine if a woman working in an office got pregnant and was harassed by her boss for “ruining his vision of this quarter’s sales” and told everyone else she was fired before her. Imagine if a woman working as a teacher wasn’t allowed to take lunch breaks like the rest of the school staff because she had the audacity to be pregnant. Imagine if a dentist was repeatedly insulted by the rest of her practice and forced to publicly expose her pregnant stomach purely to humiliate her. Imagine if a epidemiologist was forced to smear blood on her face, not for any particular reason, just to demean and punish her for starting a family. There would be a lawsuit. People would be fired, sued for harassment, banned from ever entering that line of work again. But in Hollywood there’s this attitude of “anything goes” and directors can get away with almost anything, including the (if I dare say) psychological torture of (usually female) employees.

Your “creative vision” is crap anyways if all it takes for it to be torn apart is one female character having a bigger belly for a while.

 Just admit that your “feminism” is contingent on women being palpable to the male gaze, aka is crap.

Sex Workers, language and slurs

This is the same stuff I’ve said a lot in more posts than I can remember but I want to make a specific post about it since I get a lot of questions about these things and I want to add it to my resources page.

Prostitute is a Slur

Prostitute is a word that is used entirely to criminalize sex workers. The word refers specifically to exchanging sex acts for money, which is a crime in most places, and is part of the reason other terms like ‘escort’ came along; escorting is selling one’s time which may or may not include sex, and is paid by an hourly rate, whereas prostitution is paid by the sex act. In many places, ‘escorting’ allows a loophole for full service sex work though it also has some classist implications. It remains though that prostitute is a word that strips full service sex workers of our humanity and reduces us to criminals; this is the history and intention of it. It is a slur, so don’t use it except to self refer if you’re a full service sex worker yourself.

Hooker is a Slur

Hooker is a disparaging term for a full service sex worker, often linked to street-based work, which again has class issues. It is used to demean and degrade full service sex workers. Don’t use it.

Whore is a Slur

This is an area where a lot of people fuck up, believing bullshit like “but whore is used to target all women!” No shit, guess why? Because it refers to full services sex workers. That’s the entire reason why it’s offensive. When you call someone a whore, you are literally calling them a full service sex worker. Don’t do it, and don’t use it for yourself if you’re not a sex worker (the word can be applied to sex workers who don’t do full service in some situations, but only to self refer). 

When you use any of the above words, you are contributing to whorephobia; the specific marginalization that sex workers, usually women, experience in every aspect of society from interpersonal relationships to the state. This stigma often results in discrimination, violence, rape, death and even murder. Language matters. Words are important. 

Whorephobia

Whorephobia is the term that sex workers coined in the 1970s to describe this oppression. This is the only instance where non sex workers can use the word whore. While there are problems raised with this word, it’s what we have, it’s been around for 40 years now so unless sex workers decide to change it (if that’s even possible) this is what we have whether we like it or not. The fact that this word contains a slur is no fucking excuse to attack people for using it, and the only people who complain about it are whorephobic fauxminists themselves who are trying to silence us by taking away our language to call them out on their bigotry while changing the subject, trying to paint US as misogynists. This is not a “new libfem term” and libfeminism has fucking nothing to do with sex worker rights anyway; sex workers have historically occupied the fringes of society, something which every brand of feminism likes to avoid.  If you don’t feel comfortable using this word, feel free to write it as wh*rephobia instead.

Street-Walker is a Slur

This word specifically attacks street-based workers, who experience the worst marginalization of all sex workers with all other things being equal. Even in sex worker spaces, street-based workers are often looked down on by indoor sex workers such as escorts or brothel workers. This is called lateral whorephobia and it’s fucked up. No one gets to use this phrase except street-based workers. 

Pimp is another term that often comes up in these conversations. It has a complicated history and has strong anti-Black connotations. Pimping is a reality, it definitely does happen and there are situations where this word is appropriate. It’s also a concept used to attack sex workers by criminalizing anyone who assists us; legally, anyone who helps a sex worker organize their appointments or drives them to and from a client can be charged as a pimp. It’s a disparaging term that often targets friends and partners of sex workers. It’s also widely used by anti sex worker fauxminists to discredit peer-based organizations; SWERFs will baselessly claim that sex worker organizations are actually run by pimps. This virtually never happens as most organizations have strict policies regarding who can become a member; only sex workers can join peer-based organizations. 

John is a term used to refer to the clients of sex workers. We virtually never use it, we call them clients cos that’s what they are though some sex workers call their clients tricks. That’s really up to them, but non sex workers would be better off using clients, especially since not all clients are men anyway. 

Appropriate Language 

The catch-all term for anyone who sells their sexual energy is ‘sex worker’. This includes strippers, peep show performers, brothel workers, cam performers and many more. The key point is that they sell their sexual energy; there are people in the sex industry who don’t and therefore are not sex workers, such as security staff, DJs, drivers, managers etc. 

Since this is an umbrella term, you may need to refer to specific sex industry positions.

Full service sex worker is anyone who has sex with their clients. Sex can be a variety of things but usually involves genitals touching (some sex workers only do massage with hand relief, and they are not full service sex workers), though not necessarily every time. The term implies that some form of penetrative sex is an available activity. Porn performers aren’t usually referred to as full service sex workers even though they have sex because the people they’re having sex with are not their clients, though some porn performers do full service sex work in addition to performing in porn.

Indoor sex worker generally refers to any full service sex worker who works indoors. They may work for themselves privately in their own homes or from hotel/motel/rented rooms, for an escort agency, or in a brothel/parlor. Indoor sex workers generally experience lower risks of violence; from clients, strangers and police. 

Street-based sex worker generally refers to sex workers who work outdoors or in public/semi public places. Some people consider sex workers who meet clients via the internet/newspaper advertisements and see them in semi-public spaces (e.g. cars, public toilets) to be street-based but more commonly, street-based sex worker means the sex worker meets their clients in a public place; sometimes a bar or club but more often, a stroll (a stroll is a street where sex workers tend to work; clients know to go to that street in particular to find sex workers and vice versa). Sometimes strolls are decriminalized; in Sydney for example, it’s not a criminal act for sex workers to meet clients at Kings Cross, though it isn’t legal to meet them in public anywhere else. Public sex is always illegal. Sometimes 'outdoor sex worker’ is used, but less commonly.

Brothel worker is pretty self explanatory, I’ve not heard of another term to refer to sex workers who are based in brothels. Some brothel workers also do escorting, either privately or via the brothel.

Escort is an acceptable word to use to refer to independent full service sex workers who work indoors, though some (like myself) dislike it because it has certain class connotations as above.

SWERF is an acronym that means 'sex worker exclusionist radical feminist’ and illustrates the fact that despite their protests, anti sex worker fauxminists actually hate us, including those of us who are forced, coerced and/or trafficked. They hide this behind false statistics and pretending that anyone with a tumblr account is too privileged to have an opinion, but in truth, they just want to silence us and force us out of our jobs. 

I hope this covers all the language questions, if I’ve missed anything please let me know

How do my sex worker followers feel about this?

Dear Non-Jews

Why do you feel the need to use my people’s suffering to further your cause? 

If you can’t make your argument without relating it to the holocaust, you shouldn’t be arguing.

20 minutes into let my people go and chill when he gives u this look