Dawn H Foster

"I would not urge you simply to get off the PlayStation. I would urge you to understand who made the..."

Sat, 08 Jun 2013 02:02:37 +0100

“I would not urge you simply to get off the PlayStation. I would urge you to understand who made the game. I would not urge you to take down your King James poster. I would urge you to think about the business that makes him possible. Perhaps you’d like to be part of that business some day. I would urge you think about what Kendrick is doing in his lyrics, to think about music. Do you know how to read music? Have you learned an instrument? Would that interest you? How about poetry? Have you ever read any? Would you consider trying to write some of your own?”

- Ta-Nehisi Coates (via theatlantic)

mansplainedmarxist: When people ask me to explain violence of...

Sun, 02 Jun 2013 09:04:14 +0100

mansplainedmarxist:

When people ask me to explain violence of the oppressed

Saw a Buzzfeed article titled "16 worst things about being a girl." But their list missed a few things, so I revised it.

Sun, 02 Jun 2013 09:00:06 +0100

mansplainedmarxist:

16 Worst Things About Being a Girl:

1. being called a girl when you are 26 years old.
2. street harassment
3. rape culture
4. wage gap
5. unpaid housework
6. sandwich jokes
7. the word “feminazi”
8. mansplaining
9. restricted birth control/abortion access
10. Republicans
11. Democrats
12. underwire bras
13. periods
14. having to pay for tampons
15. gender roles
16. capitalism

Lose the Lads' Magas

Wed, 29 May 2013 16:41:27 +0100

What bugs me about #losetheladsmags is a bunch of professional activists & lawyers speaking on behalf of retail workers for their own cause. When I worked in retail, what bothered me about my job: my zero hour contract, low pay, unpaid overtime, long hours, job insecurity. What didn’t: Nuts, Loaded, Zoo. I’m not saying some retail workers aren’t bothered by the mags, but it seems like a tacked on afterthought to validate their pretty shaky argument.

nubianqueens: q u e e n

Tue, 14 May 2013 12:27:14 +0100

nubianqueens:

q u e e n

"Men and women are misogynistic for different reasons: men to marginalize women, and women to..."

Tue, 14 May 2013 00:13:23 +0100

“Men and women are misogynistic for different reasons: men to marginalize women, and women to ingratiate themselves with the men trying to marginalize them. Neither one is justifiable, but one is oppressive and the other is a (bad) strategy to deal with that oppression. One thus sees that if the men who are misogynists weren’t, the women who are misogynists wouldn’t have any reason to be. Ergo, exhorting women to stop being misogynists so that men will stop gets it precisely backwards.”

- http://www.shakesville.com/2010/01/feminism-101.html (via pomegranateblood)

Sarcastathon 5000: Yesterday barrister Barbara Hewson, wrote a piece regarding Operation...

Thu, 09 May 2013 14:03:15 +0100

Sarcastathon 5000: Yesterday barrister Barbara Hewson, wrote a piece regarding Operation...:

sarcastathon5000:

Yesterday barrister Barbara Hewson, wrote a piece regarding Operation Yewtree, which began with the statement ‘I do not support the persecution of old men’. She described Yewtree as an ‘inquisition’ and it’s victims as ‘zealots’, and this is simply in the first two paragraphs.

While the…

Wow, look at that diversity. novaramedia: A ‘Benn Diagram’...

Mon, 06 May 2013 19:27:03 +0100

Wow, look at that diversity.

novaramedia:

A ‘Benn Diagram’ showing the vast array of speakers for upcoming leftist events (courtesy of David Broder)

Junot Diaz on Men Who Write About Women

Mon, 06 May 2013 07:14:25 +0100

The Atlantic: It sounds like you're saying that literary "talent" doesn't inoculate a writer—especially a male writer—from making gross, false misjudgments about gender. You'd think being a great writer would give you empathy and the ability to understand people who are unlike you—whether we're talking about gender or another category. But that doesn't seem to be the case.
Junot Diaz: I think that unless you are actively, consciously working against the gravitational pull of the culture, you will predictably, thematically, create these sort of fucked-up representations. Without fail. The only way not to do them is to admit to yourself [that] you're fucked up, admit to yourself that you're not good at this shit, and to be conscious in the way that you create these characters. It's so funny what people call inspiration. I have so many young writers who're like, "Well I was inspired. This was my story." And I'm like, "OK. Sir, your inspiration for your stories is like every other male's inspiration for their stories: that the female is only in there to provide sexual service." There comes a time when this mythical inspiration is exposed for doing exactly what it's truthfully doing: to underscore and reinforce cultural structures, or I'd say, cultural asymmetry.

"I chose to be a writer in girlhood because books rescued me. They were the places where I could..."

Sat, 04 May 2013 07:06:21 +0100

“I chose to be a writer in girlhood because books rescued me. They were the places where I could bring the broken bits and pieces of myself and put them together again, the places where I could dream about alternative realities, possible futures. They let me know firsthand that if the mind was to be the site of resistance, only the imagination could make it so. To imagine, then, was a way to begin the process of transforming reality. All that we cannot imagine will never come into being.”

- bell hooks, “Narratives of Struggle” (via ellesugars)

"I used to think it would be great if we could all be colorblind. That’s naïve, especially for..."

Sat, 04 May 2013 07:05:08 +0100

““I used to think it would be great if we could all be colorblind. That’s naïve, especially for a white person, because a white person can afford to be colorblind. They don’t have to think about race every day. An African American does.””

- David Howard

girlsgetbusyzine: END CATCALLS by Charline Bataille

Thu, 02 May 2013 18:40:46 +0100

girlsgetbusyzine:

END CATCALLS by Charline Bataille

"In its favour, if Google Glass didn’t exist, all these Silicon Valley guys would be having affairs..."

Wed, 01 May 2013 08:54:47 +0100

“In its favour, if Google Glass didn’t exist, all these Silicon Valley guys would be having affairs or buying unsuitable motorbikes”

- (via whitemenwearinggoogleglass)

cosmarxpolitan: Cosmarxpolitan, Issue 6 8 steps to make extra...

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 06:34:12 +0100

cosmarxpolitan:

Cosmarxpolitan, Issue 6

8 steps to make extra pounds (and enemies) disappear

When austerity feels like a heart attack

Mon, 15 Apr 2013 16:35:28 +0100

“It remains to be seen how the Eurozone crisis will affect the long term health of citizens in the PIGS, who’ve typically been held up as doyennes of health, with their much vaunted heart-healthy Mediterranean cuisine. But if the Argentinian financial crisis and resulting heart attack rates, and now the spike in cardiac arrests in Kalamata are anything to go by, using the European south as a guinea pig for austerity is fatal, as well as economically illiterate.”

I wrote about how austerity has caused heart attacks to spike in Greece, and maternal health to plummet - it’s over on OpenDemocracy, or the New Statesman, whichever you prefer.

fuckyeahmarxismleninism: This is Thatcher’s Britain: Orgreave...

Tue, 09 Apr 2013 15:35:09 +0100

fuckyeahmarxismleninism:

This is Thatcher’s Britain: Orgreave during the miners’ strike.

“I’ll tell you what really annoyed us miners,” said Pete Mansell, sipping a pint...

Tue, 09 Apr 2013 15:31:35 +0100

“I’ll tell you what really annoyed us miners,” said Pete Mansell, sipping a pint of John Smith’s on Monday. “She said we were the enemy within. We weren’t. We were just looking after our lives, our families, our kids and our properties, everything that we ever had. We were fighting for that big style.”

Rachel's Tunisian tiles blog

Mon, 01 Apr 2013 15:14:50 +0100

rachel-shabi:

While interviewing in Tunis, I kept getting distracted by the amazing floor tiles… here’s some of them

economistadentata: Bankers have no armies.

Mon, 01 Apr 2013 15:14:11 +0100

economistadentata: Bankers have no armies.:

“My lord,’ he says. “You have said what you have to say. Now listen to me. You are a man whose money is almost spent. I am a man who knows how you have spent it. You are a man who has borrowed all over Europe. I am a man who knows all your creditors. One word from me, and your debts will be…

thebluebirdsparadox: sometimes, even in the most painful of...

Sun, 31 Mar 2013 20:17:42 +0100

thebluebirdsparadox:

sometimes, even in the most painful of situations, it’s enough to know that other people have been through it too. If they’re still here, why can’t I be?