Standing Tall in NV

stuffmomnevertoldyou:

The New York City Department of Consumer Affairs compared nearly 800 products with female and male versions — meaning they were practically identical except for the gender-specific packaging — and uncovered a persistent surcharge for one of the sexes. Controlling for quality, items marketed to girls and women cost an average 7 percent more than similar products aimed at boys and men.

(via pern-dragon)

stuffmomnevertoldyou:

Starting early in 2016, new policies in California and Oregon will allow women in those states to access hormonal contraception without a doctor’s prescription. In both states, pharmacists will be empowered to conduct a pre-screening and then prescribe birth control, eliminating the need for women to visit—or even call—a doctor before they can obtain the pill, patch, or ring. Both medical practitioners and reproductive health experts say this is a huge step towards making birth control accessible for any woman who needs or wants it—and that it’s about time.

(via pern-dragon)

bebravesemi:

It is great to see strong women who can overcome challenges. We can be our own superheroes. We have to talk about domestic violence and the long term impact it has on the survivors and the children who witness abuse. That is the only way we will find the ways to change.

(via pern-dragon)

veggiezombiex:

professorfangirl:

bookgeekgrrl:

thewinterotter:

The rage that white men have been expressing, loudly, violently, over the very idea that they might find themselves identifying with characters who are not white men, the very idea that heroism might not be particular to one race or one gender, the basic idea that the human story is vast and various and we all get to contribute a page - that rage is petty. It is aware of its own pettiness. Like a screaming toddler denied a sweet, it becomes more righteous the more it reminds itself that after all, it’s only a story.

Only a story. Only the things we tell to keep out the darkness. Only the myths and fables that save us from despair, to establish power and destroy it, to teach each other how to be good, to describe the limits of desire, to keep us breathing and fighting and yearning and striving when it’d be so much easier to give in. Only the constitutive ingredients of every human society since the Stone age.

Only a story. Only the most important thing in the whole world.

The people who are upset that the faces of fiction are changing are right to worry. It’s a fundamental challenge to a worldview that’s been too comfortable for too long. The part of our cultural imagination that places white Western men at the centre of every story is the same part that legitimises racism and sexism. The part of our collective mythos that encourages every girl and brown boy to identify and empathise with white male heroes is the same part that reacts with rage when white boys are asked to imagine themselves in anyone else’s shoes.

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“…because when you’ve been used to privilege, equality feels like prejudice.”

and also

“Capitalism is just a story. Religion is just a story. Patriarchy and white supremacy are just stories. They are the great organising myths that define our societies and determine our futures, and I believe - I hope - that a great rewriting is slowly, surely underway.”

^^^^ YES. This whole thing is glorious.

The thing is important. Click through and read the thing!

… Imagine how over time that rage would harden into bewilderment, and finally mute acceptance that people like you were never going to get to be the hero, not really.

Then imagine that suddenly starting to change. Imagine letting out a breath you’d held between your teeth so long you’d forgotten the taste of air.

(via pern-dragon)