fragments
“My parents died years ago. I was very close to them. I still miss them terribly. I know I always will. I long to believe that their essence, their personalities, what I loved so much about them, are - really and truly - still in existence somewhere. […] Plainly, there’s something within me that’s ready to believe in life after death. And it’s not the least bit interested in whether there’s any sober evidence for it. So I don’t guffaw at the woman who visit’s her husband’s grave and chats him up every now and then, maybe on the anniversary of his death. It’s not hard to understand. And if I have difficulties with the ontological status of who she’s talking to, that’s all right. That’s not what this is about. This is about humans being human.”
(Source: carl-sagan, via astronemma)
My class today
Me:
So when you see the 4 year old boy pull the little girl's hair...
Students:
He likes her!
Me:
Now they are around 11 or 12 and he grabs her arm and wrestles her to the ground even though she calls him a jerk and yells at him to leave her alone.
Students:
That is just how boys are.
Me:
Now they are 18 and he grabs her arm and--
Students:
Oh, that's not okay.
Me:
Really? How would he know? How would she know? How would you know? You just told me that for the first 17 years of these children's lives that you thought it was cute, sweet, and natural for a boy to grab a girl and be rough with her.
Students:
Oh.
Me:
Oh, is right.
“Princeton University psychologist Susan Fiske took brain scans of heterosexual men while they looked at sexualised images of women wearing bikinis. She found that the part of their brains that became activated was pre-motor - areas that usually light up when people anticipate using tools. The men were reacting to the images as if the women were objects they were going to act on. Particularly shocking was the discovery that the participants who scored highest on tests of hostile sexism were those most likely to deactivate the part of the brain that considers other people’s intentions (the medial prefrontal cortex) while looking at the pictures. These men were responding to images of the women as if they were non-human.”
The Equality Illusion (via lesilencieux)
(via randomactsofchaos)
(Source: thoughtfulcynic, via tkot)
WE NEED FEMINISM BECAUSE WHEN LANCE ARMSTRONG GOT CANCER AND LOST A TESTICLE IT WAS ALL ABOUT HIS HEALTH AND HOW INSPIRATIONAL HE WAS BUT WHEN ANGELINA JOLIE GETS A DOUBLE MASTECTOMY TO PREVENT HERSELF FROM GETTING CANCER, IT’S ALL ABOUT HOW SHE WON’T BE A SEX SYMBOL ANYMORE AND HOW MEN ARE OFFENDED CAUSE SHE WON’T BE AN OBJECT FOR THEM
(via tkot)
just because coming out is brave, doesn’t mean being in the closet is cowardly.
queer existence, queer survival is brave.
(via tkot)
“… the socialization of boys regarding masculinity is often at the expense of women. I came to realize that we don’t raise boys to be men, we raise them not to be women (or gay men). We teach boys that girls and women are “less than” and that leads to violence by some and silence by many. It’s important for men to stand up to not only stop men’s violence against women but, to teach young men a broader definition of masculinity that includes being empathetic, loving and non-violent.”
(Source: spikyhairjon, via tkot)
The Kernel Of Truth: [TW: rape] some of the arguments that defense attorneys use to defend rapists
i want you guys to stay informed. here are some of the arguments that i edited for a defense attorney who specialized in defending men accused of sexual assault, rape and domestic violence
- these cases work in a peculiar way — the jury won’t be swayed if the lawyer seems to be…
