i used to think it was fun and interesting to get into debates about feminism or racism, or in general challenge people’s bigotry and prejudice and call them out. but recently it’s become a burden. it’s a chore now. i no longer want to debate about whether or not i should have basic human rights, this shouldn’t even be a fucking issue anymore. i no longer go into these discussions with an open mind and a light-hearted demeanor, now i’m fucking furious. i should not have to defend my humanity at every single step, repeatedly and constantly. i’m done.
i was 14 and i was walking through a mall by myself at 12am after my shift at coldstone creamery lol and a bunch of men started whistling and meowing and getting really close to me and they kept asking me questions and i kept not answering until i didn’t know what else to do so i said “i’m only 14” and almost in unison they said “we don’t care” i was so fucking scared i didn’t know what to do and they kept talking about how i looked and how my body looked and what they would do i was on the verge of tears i was all alone in a huge mall i knew i couldn’t outrun them all i felt totally hopeless until a maintenance worker came up to all of us with a huge industrial broom in her hand, i thought she was going to yell at all of us for being in the mall after hours bc she probably thought we were all friends but instead she cursed all of them out in spanish, threatened to press a panic button on her belt and then proceeded to walk me to the basement garage and waited with me until my mom got there to pick me up she had a death grip on her cart the whole time and a face of steel she looked so strong and i just kept saying thank you and she kept saying not to thank her because she had to stop them.
that was the moment i realized women were the most important beings on this planet and we have to protect each other bc nobody else is going to, she didn’t even know me, we couldn’t even communicate that well because of the language barrier, she could have lost her job for waiting with me in the parking lot but she looked out for me when she didn’t have to, she had nothing to gain from it, i’m 21 now and i tell everyone this story even though it happened 7 years ago, what she did that night helped me form and shape lot of my beliefs early on.
i was at a grocery store really late one night and some old guy kind of eyed me as i walked out of the store next to this other lady. She and I made eye contact and i knew she was scared too. we loaded up our groceries into our cars as fast as possible and I had way more bags than her so she got done faster than me. I panicked because i was sure she was going to leave so i just hurried faster, shaking a little, and then i noticed she sat in her car, watching me and making sure nobody came near. She waited not until all my groceries were loaded, or until my cart was put away, or until I got into my car. No, she didn’t drive away until I drove away.
And that was the moment that I realized how much women need other women. That we can’t win this war without each other and we have to be looking out for each other, every second.
my last year in new york city, i got off the subway around 9 or 10p.m. i only lived about 5 blocks from the f train, but i hadn’t gotten more than two before a woman’s hand suddenly touched my arm.
“that guy behind us is following you,” she said. “he was watching you leave the train car and followed you up.”
i hadn’t noticed him, or at least not noticed him following me. when we stopped outside a grocery store, he stopped half a block back and loitered. the woman linked her arm with mine and walked me several blocks out of her way to my front door and made sure i got inside safely.
another time, nocigar and i were walking home and at a stoplight a stranger grabbed my arm when i wouldn’t respond to him and tried to physically drag me over to him. she—who is, by the way, not a very physically imposing girl—ripped his hand off my arm and snarled, “don’t fucking touch her.”
protect your friends. protect strangers. there are good men in the world, but don’t wait for them to do something if you can do it yourself.
When im at shows i stare like a hawk thru the crowd keeping eyes on the younger girls and im always ready to jump on any old dude and its something a lot of other older girls i kno do because we know how creepy and shitty men are when they think theres too many ppl around not paying attention to them. Protect and watch over fellow girls because believe me dudes will not stop other dudes its a 1 in 450 that a dude will stop another dude from being a shitty creep. I remember when i was 12. 12. 12 at a show w a friend of mine and a dude was trying to feel up on her and nobody else said shit except for this drunk girl that came in and shoved him off of her and to this day i try to be her everywhere i go cause she was the only one to stand up for my friend against a dude probably 3 times her size. Protect. Fellow. Girls.
It’s funny how people are mad at protestors for disrupting the “peace”. Peace is subjective. The reality is that for man black people there is a constant feeling of fear, oppression, and sorrow. So when you say “all lives matter” you’re taking away from the magnitude of what we’re trying to get across. Don’t be mad at black people for saying we matter, be mad at the social, political, and economical injustices we face every day. Black lives matter.
i also hope when straight cis people know when they say shit like ‘you’re too young to know you’re queer etc’ it’s because you’re sexualising us. you equate queer-ness with adulthood. that’s also why asexuals/aromantics/non-binary folk aren’t considered ‘queer enough’ because our whole community is sexualised. it’s fucking awful.
“Foucault tuvo muchas vidas: como académico, como activista político, como niño y como amante de hombres. Tuvo una vida muy pública, pero también otra muy privada. En sentido amplio, su vida también fue la vida intelectual de Francia. Hay pocos cambios que no se hayan reflejado en su obra o conquistas que no haya influido. Su biografía es también por necesidad la historia intelectual de su tiempo. Como tributo inesperadamente generoso, el filósofo alemán Jürgen Habermas, que podía haber sido muy crítico con él, escribió: «Del círculo de filósofos de mi generación que hacen el diagnóstico de nuestro tiempo, Foucault es quien ha influido de modo más duradero el Zeügeist». En su época de estudiante, fue testigo del predominio del existencialismo sartreano y reaccionó contra él, y también formó parte de la generación que descubrió o redescubrió a Hegel, Nietzsche y Heidegger. Louis Althusser y Maurice Merleau-Ponty fueron profesores suyos. En los años sesenta se le tenía por miembro del grupo estructuralista de los cuatro, cuyos otros componentes eran Jacques Lacan, Roland Barthes y Claude Lévi-Strauss. Una década más tarde, se le asociaba con los llamados nuevos filósofos en su retirada precipitada del marxismo y el maoísmo. En sus últimos años, otro cambio de dirección le condujo a la apacible contemplación de la filosofía estoica y a la exploración de una posible ética nueva.”
so im at work and bagging for this lady and her little kid and the kids askin me about what its like being a big kid and all that so he goes “do you have a girlfriend? is she pretty?” and i live in a pretty liberal area and it was pretty quiet in the store so i just calmly responded “actually i have a boyfriend, but he’s fairly pretty” and the mom just kinda pauses on her phone and looks down at her son like please dont say anything bad please dont embarrass me but he just gets so fuckin excited and is like “you can do that ???? i didnt know boys were allowed to have boyfriends!!” and hes turns to his mom and is pulling at her phone trying to get her attention and is just really excited like “mom did you know that ? can i have a boyfriend instead of a girlfriend ??” and she just started laughing and was like “if you want sure” and they took their groceries and left and im just standing there like
