//N/O/S/T/A/L/G/I/C//F/O/R//N/O/T/H/I/N/G//

“Defensive architecture” aimed at the homeless as a deliberate, considered kind of cruelty.

By Lisa Wade, PhD

I encourage everyone to go read this very smart and very sad essay from Alex Andreuo at The Guardian. It’s a condemnation of defensive architecture, a euphemism for strategies that make the urban landscape inhospitable to the homeless.

They include benches with dividers that make it impossible to lie down, spikes and protrusions on window ledges and in front of store windows, forests of pointed cement structures under bridges and freeways, emissions of high pitched sounds, and sprinklers that intermittently go off on sidewalks to prevent camping overnight. There is also perpetually sticky anti-climb paint and corner urination guards, plus “viewing gardens” that take up space that might be attractive to homeless people:

The examples above and below are from a collection at Dismal Garden. Here’s a picture of anti-encampment spikes featured at The Guardian:

This is to discourage urination:

This is to take up space so people can’t camp on the sidewalk:

Andreuo writes of the psychological effect of these structures. They tell homeless people quite clearly that they are not wanted and that others not only don’t care, but are actively antagonistic to their comfort and well being. He says:

If the corporations have turned to aggressive tactics, governments seem to simply be in denial. They offer few resources to homeless people and the ones they do offer are insufficient to serve everyone. Andreuo continues:

He then connects the dots. “Fundamental misunderstanding of destitution,” he argues, “is designed to exonerate the rest from responsibility and insulate them from perceiving risk.” If homeless people are just failing to do right by themselves or take the help available to them, then only they are to blame for their situation. And, if only they are to blame, we don’t have to worry that, given just the right turn of events, it could happen to us.

Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College and the co-author of Gender: Ideas, Interactions, Institutions. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

Trying to spread more awareness about the fact that Nazi’s have been setting up camp in front of the Olympia Police Department almost every single night.

a thing I wrote after arguing with an insensitive dude on facebook all day or Things Other People Taught me about Liking Girls (via squidterritory)

WereWyatt - Bad Examples

4chan are the one’s behind these hashtags. Typical smear campaign that arises when women’s and allies’ voices gain media attention for things like #yesallwomen. They figure if they can smear us they can make people dismiss our experiences and write us off as radicals. You can see a screencap of thread where they’re discussing their plan in the story at this link although the actual thread has been deleted now. Don’t let these hashtags become a story about feminism told on news outlets over and over again until the public believe it. Please spread the word. 

Angela Davis (via ethiopienne)

Yes but enough men that every girl is terrified of smiling to that guy on the bus or talking with the boy in the coffee shop. Every girl has been walking late at night at one point and been afraid of who might be following her. Every girl has referred to someone as a “creep” and every girl has refused a drink from someone she doesn’t know.

Not all men.

But enough men that all women are now afraid of most men. It’s gotten so bad that we have to be afraid of even telling you we are afraid. We can’t ask that you please stop talking to us. Because if we do we run the risk of being labeled a “stuck up bitch” and blamed for murders and rapes in which we are the victims.

So we speak to you with body language that we hope you’ll understand. We cross our legs and look out the window and wear giant headphones that are giant signs that subtly read “DON’T TALK TO ME!” But you insist on ignoring those signs because you have it in your head that our body language doesn’t mean anything. That our bodies aren’t our bodies.

Not all men. You can start fucking saying that when all women can stop being afraid. But that’s not gonna happen if every man a women opens up to about this issue dismisses her by saying “Not all men.”

an unofficial letter to the skeezball at work all men.

(via thehansoloist)

THIS.

(via thebitterbite)

here’s a crow using a jar lid for a sled, if you’re interested in that sort of thing. i know i am.

it’s the only sort of thing i’m interested in, to be quite honest

But for real though, this video makes me feel more connected to life itself.

i love crow.

The ‘who cares?’ reaction to people side-eyeing Jared Leto for not only playing a trans woman, but winning the Oscar for his role and failing to mention trans women in his speech is ridiculous.  An actual trans actress in that role would have been revolutionary.You should care. Trans women matter, their stories matter, and they deserve to be represented on screen.