Rape Culture, Gun Culture

Let's discuss the original image.

Guns Don't Kill People. Dad's With Good Looking Daughters Do.

It's a play on the NRA slogan that guns don't kill people, people kill people.  In this particular example, it's very specific people threatening to kill people: the fathers of sexually available, "good looking" daughters. This quote makes some assumptions about the way the world works.

1. It's right and  normal for a father to control a young woman's sexual agency, both on her behalf (as a threatening figure/excuse against being pressured into sex she doesn't want) and against her will (as a threatening figure who punishes her for dating/having sex).
2. It's right and normal for an adult male to threaten to murder someone his child cares about.
3. It's right and normal to consider a pubescent or post pubescent woman as under threat.
4. It's right and normal to consider women's sexuality as a threatening thing.
5. Young women run the constant risk of sexual assault/rape and need adult men to control their behavior/take charge of their romantic/sexual lives on their behalf.
6. Fatherless women can't depend on anyone to protect them from sexual assault, as that's a father's job.
7. Women who aren't conventionally attractive ("good looking") don't deserve to be protected from sexual assault.
8. Women who aren't conventionally attractive ("good looking") can't be sexually assaulted because who'd want them/they want it anyway/they should be grateful for whatever attention they get.

This kind of quote says a lot about the way our dominant society views women, fathers, gender roles, and sexuality. The misplaced apostrophe is the ignorant cherry on the misogynist sundae.

The Worth of a Woman

Let's discuss this!

1) If she's amazing she won't be easy. The term "easy" when applied to a woman generally refers to her sexual history. "Easy" women are women that have had sex. It's easy to have sex with them because they enjoy sex, or they are sex workers, or they are easily intimidated and unable to say no. "Easy" women are "sluts" and are generally considered by kyriarchal society to have less worth than non-easy or chaste women. But ultimately, no woman is ever chaste enough unless she lives in a convent surrounded by armed guards and wearing an iron chastity belt which has no key. The truth is that many amazing women have sex. Many amazing women have sex with one person, others have sex with many people. Amazing women have sex all the time. Amazing women also abstain from sex, either of their own volition or not. One's sexual experience has very little to do with how amazing one is, unless one is specifically talking about amazingness while having sex, where one might expect that someone experienced at having sex will have more amazing sex just as one who's been playing piano for a long time is more amazing at it than someone who started recently.

2) If she's easy, she won't be amazing. Again, a woman who has had sex, who is "easy," is described as having less value than a woman who is not "easy," one who has not had sex. THIS IS WHY MEN WHO RAPE WOMEN DO NOT GO TO JAIL, because women who have had sex are assigned less value than virgins. It's one of the classic "but I didn't really rape her" excuses. It couldn't have been rape, she's had sex before! It couldn't have been rape, she's had sex with ME before! A woman who has had sex has less value, less worth, then a woman who has not had sex! THIS IS BULLSHIT.

3) If she's worth it, you won't give up. I know, I know. I've seen those romantic comedies, too. The one where a dude engages in creepy stalker behavior and the woman sees through the error of her ways in rejecting him and they have a happy ever after. Look. When a woman says no, whether that's to dating or to having sex, she means no. Drop it. Pursuing a woman against her will is controlling, manipulative, and fucked up. Yes, despite every romantic movie you've ever seen that denies women agency and flat out says that stalking is the way to a woman's heart. If she's worth your respect, don't creep her out by forcing yourself into her life.

4) If you give up, you're not worthy. And this is the crux of the matter, isn't it? Pursuing a woman, for romance or for sex, ultimately isn't about what she wants. It's about the man proving that he's worth it, that he deserves her, that he's man enough. What the woman wants EXPLICITLY doesn't matter. The man will just wear her down over time, prove his worth, and ride off into the sunset.

This is rape culture in action. This stressing that a woman's worth is tied directly to her sexuality and experience is a way of demeaning and dismissing any woman that isn't "pure" enough, whether that's purity in action, thought, dress, behavior, or what. It's a way of controlling women, of controlling who they meet and what they wear and how they act and where they go (and when!) and who they have sex with and how often. Women who are sexually active are as worth while, as valuable, as women who are not sexually active. Women who have sex do not suddenly stop being human beings.

This is rape culture in action. This cavalier disregard for what a woman wants in preference to what the man wants is rape culture; moreover, the stress women are under to appear pure/chaste/inexperienced and thus to routinely say no when they might really want to say yes and then "allow" the man to "convince" them essentially paves the way for rape. This insistence that women who say yes are slutty sluts while women who say no are really saying maybe is harmful.

This is rape culture in action. At the root of it, this isn't about how amazing women are and how they're worth pursuing. This is about controlling women's behavior and determining their value, and telling men that they are only real women if they pursue an uninterested women and force them into a relationship. A man who "gives up," a man who respects a no, is "not worthy." Not worthy? A man who treats a woman with respect and consideration is "not worthy"? Not worthy of what, exactly?

This is rape culture and it's harmful. It's why rape convictions are so low. It's why serial rapists aren't punished, instead being turned loose so they can continue raping. It's why one million women are raped every year, some of them by guys who are unaware that they've raped a woman because "no" means "maybe, keep trying."

Women are not defined by their sexual history. All women have worth. All women have value. Women say no to sex, and to relationships, because they don't want to have that sex or be in those relationships. Pursuing them despite their objections is cruel.

Recent CDC statistics concerning rape

According to the CDC, more than 1 million women are raped in a year and over 6 million women and men are victims of stalking in a year. These findings emphasize that sexual violence, stalking, and intimate partner violence are important and widespread public health problems in the United States.

1 Million Women are sacrificed on the altar of Kyriarchy every year.

Nearly 1 in 5 women (18.3%) and 1 in 71 men (1.4%) in the United States have been raped at some time in their lives, including completed forced penetration, attempted forced penetration, or alcohol/drug facilitated completed penetration.

More than half (51.1%) of female victims of rape reported being raped by an intimate partner and 40.8% by an acquaintance; for male victims, more than half (52.4%) reported being raped by an acquaintance and 15.1% by a stranger.

Approximately 1 in 21 men (4.8%) reported that they were made to penetrate someone else during their lifetime; most men who were made to penetrate someone else reported that the perpetrator was either an intimate partner (44.8%) or an acquaintance (44.7%).

An estimated 13% of women and 6% of men have experienced sexual coercion in their lifetime (i.e., unwanted sexual penetration after being pressured in a nonphysical way); and 27.2% of women and 11.7% of men have experienced unwanted sexual contact.

Most female victims of completed rape (79.6%) experienced their first rape before the age of 25; 42.2% experienced their first completed rape before the age of 18 years.

More than one-quarter of male victims of completed rape (27.8%) experienced their first rape when they were 10 years of age or younger.

Melissa McEwan at Shakesville discusses recent CDC statistics regarding rape and idly wonders

Imagine if the amount of effort put into "ending obesity" because of its alleged drain on the healthcare system were put into dismantling the rape culture.

Here's the CDC fact sheet.

Pinterest Bingo, part 1 of what will probably be many

Oh Pinterest, you are such a source of wonder and fucked-up-ness.

To wit:


Let's break this down a bit, shall we?

First off, PMS is a real thing in the world, that real people experience. Yes, women are real people. All people who have biologically female bodies are real people. RADICAL NOTION, I KNOW, but stay with me here.

Secondly, PMS relates to the changes in hormones female-bodied people experience as part of typical female-bodiedness. PMS doesn't make more things annoying: the pain, discomfort, and hormonal changes instead take away resources from dealing with other shit. If someone is angry at you for something while they're experiencing PMS, they're angry about it all of the rest of the time too, they just have less resources to put up with your shit at this time, so they're not going to play along and just swallow their discontent down.

Next, can we please get rid of the idea that emotions are horrible and weak and undesirable? We are humans. We have emotions. We're kind of supposed to. Propagating the idea that we should suppress them leads to a whoooole lot of really fucked up people, doing fucked up things. If we aren't allowed to have our own feelings and express them, no one else is allowed to have feelings either, and we're not allowed to have feelings for them. We're also not allowed to have empathy if we're not allowed to have emotions. And without empathy, you get to places where it's possible for someone to witness a rape and think "it's not my business to come forward", among many, many other things.

Plus, if we're not allowed to have emotions, that's an opportunity to recast anyone who does show emotion as weak and less-than. And it's often applied to women, but also to men. It's where we get the insults "sissy", "pussy", "crybaby", "oversensitive", etc. No one wants to be any of those things, right? Well, it's because the underlying assumption is that emotions are bad.

Also, can we please get away from from using bitch as a way to demean women who aren't doing what society tells them to, i.e. shut up and look pretty? Guess what kids. Complaining and calling attention to fucked-up-ness is part of getting the wrong things fixed. But while if women do it, it's bitching, but if men do it, it's seizing an opportunity for growth, and showing good analytical skills, and shit like that. Calling a woman who is pissed, who is not sitting demurely in the corner, who is calling you on your shit a bitch is just another way of rationalizing dismissing her concerns.

The joke also hinges not only on emotionalism and non-quiet women being bad, but on them OMG FINDING YOU. OH NOES, NOT AN UPSET WOMAN UP IN MY PIECE, NOOOOES. Seriously, the laugh is supposed to be that "ha ha that's funny because it's a little horrifying and scary to contemplate" laugh. You're supposed to laugh because it's what you don't want to happen, and OMG isn't it great those bitches DON'T have GPS? HAR HAR better not give her one for Christmas! Which, while being with someone who is upset, angry, crying, etc. may not be fun, per se, I really question the notion that it's so terrible that it should be avoided at all costs. I can certainly see where if you're not used to dealing with even your own emotions, it can be utterly terrifying, because you don't have the language and capacity to cope, but it's still not the worst possible thing in the world. And, is another example of how that lack of empathy and suppression of emotion can have a real impact.

So yeah, this is a huge post about one little picture. But this picture communicates some very specific messages. And pictures like these are part of how those messages propagate. This one is selling the message that women are bad, emotions are bad, and dealing with emotions is a terrible fate. Seriously, at least four sexist tropes in one picture. With the free space, that is totally bingo.

Want to foster an Eating Disorder? There's a Pin for that.

If you're on Pinterest you've probably seen the glut of "pro-ana," "thinspiration," and eating disorder apologia that is posted and reposted with no examination or critical thinking. Yes, eating disorders are mental illness and won't just go away if you tell people to knock it off, but it's also possible to create an environment where they aren't encouraged.

Anyway, one Pin is of a conventionally attractive woman in a bikini, with the following wall of text as a caption:

1. Drink one glass of water every hour. It will make you feel full.

2. Drink ice cold water. Your body will burn calories just getting the water to a normal temperature to digest. Also it is great for your complexion.

3. Drink 3 cups of green tea daily. It will help boost your metabolism, plus its anti-oxidants make your skin look great.

4. Take vitamins daily. Do not take vitamins on an empty stomache, otherwise they have nothing to catalyze with.

5. Eat ice or gum when hungry. This will make your body think it had food without the calories.

6. Do aerobics until you want to faint.

7. Eat spicy foods. They raise your metabolism.

8. Take cold showers because your body will burn calories to heat you back up.

9. DON’T take laxatives. They don’t help you to lose weight.

10. DON’T use diruretics. They only dehydrate you.

11. Brush your teeth constantly so you won’t be tempted to eat afterwards.

12. Wear a rubberband around your wrist. Snap it when you want to eat.

13. Clean something gross (toilet, litter box, boyfriend’s closet) when you want to eat. You will not want to eat after cleaning a litter box.

14. Get a job so you’ll have to work through meal times.

15 Use smaller plates and utensils so it seems like you ate more.

16. Chew each bite of food thoroughly and then take a sip of water between bites. You will feel full quicker and will not eat as much.

17. Buy clothes that you can’t fit into and hang them wear you can see them. This will motivate you to lose weight to fit into them.

18. Sleep at least six hours a day. If you get less than six this can lower your metabolism by 15%.

19. If you start to feel hungry do situps.

20. Pamper yourself! Give yourself a facial, paint your nails, anything to make you feel pretty.

21. Get out of your house!

22. Keep track of everything you eat. Look at it daily for thinsperation.

23. Keep good posture, burns 10% more calories when you sit up straight.

24. Make a list of all the “bad” foods that you crave and tend to binge on. Each day, pick one to take out of your diet that you absolutely, no matter what, cannot eat again. Take one off the list each day until there are no more bad foods you can have.

25. Avoid alcohol! A shot of liquor has 100-120 calories, a glass of wine has 80 calories, a lite beer has 110-120 calories, and a regular beer has 140-170 calories.

26. Never eat anything bigger than about a cup, your stomach will expand and then you’ll get hungry more.

27. Have 6 small meals a day.

28. Low calorie hot chocolate curbs chocolate cravings, and makes you feel full.

29. It takes 20 minutes for the brain to realize the stomach is full.

30. Eat lots of fiber. It makes you feel full and takes fat with it out of your body. The natural cleansing helps improve both your energy level and overall feeling of wellness.

31.Before you dig into that cake, bag of chips, candy, or whatever, take a deep breath and count to 100. Usually by the time you get to 100 you will have convinced yourself that you don’t really want it.

32. When you’re hungry chug 2 glasses (or how many you need) of straight water. It’ll make you so full

33. Celery actually burns calories. Every hour eat a stalk of it. Not only will it fill you up, but it will also get your metabolism kickin’.

34. Read the nutritional information. Remember, fat-free does not mean calorie-free. Also keep an eye on fiber content. Get as much fiber into your diet as you can, while cutting fat and calories.

35. Don’t eat a lot at once. Spread your food throughout the day. This will help to avoid binging and keep your metabolism going.

36. If you like to drink alcohol, you’ll like this. Make a rule: You can only drink every time you lose 2lbs. So, if you lose 4lbs a week, you can drink Friday and Saturday night. However, if you only lose 2lbs a week, you only get to drink one night.

37. Do not eat in front of the computer or TV. This distracts you from recognizing you’re full.

38. Stay away from Slim-fast and other so-called “healthy” candy bars and shakes… one look at the nutition facts will tell you why. With all the carbs and excess calories you may as well go eat a freakin pie or something. Not to mention the rediculous prices… save yourself the money, and the calories.

39.When having cravings drink a couple glasses of water with slices of lemons and count to 100 and it should go away.

40. Eating 100 cals 4 times a day is better than eating a 400 cal meal.

41. An occasional binge doesn’t hurt, in fact it’s quite beneficial if you have reached a plateau (stopped losing weight). Your body will think you have stopped starving yourself, and you will drop at least a pound overnight! Just don’t binge too regularly!

41. Someone told me that if you take a pure cold bath for 15-30 min and lower your body temp, your body burns around 200 cals for every degree it has to raise itself to reach a normal body temperature. This person tried it, a 30 min bath lowered their temp about 3-4 degrees"

Let's address this point by point.

• Drink one glass of water every hour. It will make you feel full.  It's true, putting water in your stomach fills your stomach up. However, water does not include the vital nutrients-- including fat and calories-- that your body and brain need to function. If your car's gas tank is on empty, would you  top it off with water? How many people would suggest that as a good idea? Cars need fuel to function and so do humans. Interfering with the body's natural signals (addressing hunger pains with non-nutritive substances) harms the body and the mind.
•  Drink ice cold water. Your body will burn calories just getting the water to a normal temperature to digest. Also it is great for your complexion. This is technically true. If you drink 8 glasses of ice cold water a day, you'll burn about 70 calories. If you spend an hour sitting on your butt and reading you'll also burn about 70 calories. Breathing burns calories. Every single thing you do burns calories. Are you really going to figure out every single tiny thing you do and work to "game the system?" That's obsession. Water's awesome. Drink water. Don't drink ice water because you want to fade away and disappear.
• Drink 3 cups of green tea daily. It will help boost your metabolism, plus its anti-oxidants make your skin look great. If you look at actual abstracts and clinical results, they're full of words like "suggests" and "may," not "will" and "does." Also, it's 10 cups and not 3. Various teas are constantly being promoted as wonder foods that will cure cancer and obesity and heart disease and reverse aging etc etc etc and of course "anti-oxidants" are the buzzword of the decade. But there are very few actual RESULTS from tea studies. You want to drink green tea? Enjoy it! But it's not a magic cure for anything.
• Take vitamins daily. Do not take vitamins on an empty stomache, otherwise they have nothing to catalyze with.This doesn't make sense. At all. It is completely nonsensical. "Catalyze with?" Really? That being said, many vitamins are fat soluble. They NEED to interact with fat or else they are useless. That's how they work. Also, vitamins on an empty stomach can cause stomach upset/heart burn in some people. Unless you have an underlying medical condition, you shouldn't NEED vitamins. If you NEED vitamins, either there is something medically wrong with you (bowel inflammation from gluten intolerance, maybe) or you need to examine your diet and figure out why it is so lacking in nutrients.
• Eat ice or gum when hungry. This will make your body think it had food without the calories. This is basically a repetition of the first "point," and it's just... your body needs calories. You need calories to live. You need calories to function. You need calories to think and reason and just... everything. You need them. You cannot live without calories. When your body is telling you it is hungry, feed it. It's ok! It's ok to eat food! Your body isn't lying when it tells you it needs food. Feed it!
• Do aerobics until you want to faint. Moving is awesome. I love to dance. I like walking places. I adore swimming. I lift (hand) weights because it's fun. Moving should be a pleasure. Sometimes it's not, but still necessary. Doing aerobics "until you want to faint" is never necessary. Do you want to be fit? That's great! Find movement you enjoy and do it. Find something you enjoy, something you look forward to. Stop punishing your body. Your life should be about more than punishment and pain and denial. You deserve better.
• Eat spicy foods. They raise your metabolism.This is technically true, just like the ice water calorie burning thing. But is that really the best reason to eat spicy food? Because you get a tiny, minor, short term boost to your metabolism? Spicy food tastes good. You should eat food that tastes good. Eat spicy food because it tastes good and makes you happy to eat it. Eat spicy food because you enjoy it. It's ok to enjoy food! Looking at food based solely on its mechanics is obsessive and unhealthy. Be healthy! Eat food you like!
• Take cold showers because your body will burn calories to heat you back up. I cannot stress this enough. YOU DESERVE TO HAVE A HOT SHOWER. You don't have to stand, shivering and burning calories, naked and alone, under a cold stream of water. Turn on the hot water! Use a soap that smells good! Enjoy your shower! YOU DESERVE TO HAVE A NICE CLEANING ROUTINE. You do. Really. YOU DO NOT HAVE TO SUFFER. Take a hot shower, ok? Unless you like cold showers in which case knock yourself out.
• DON’T take laxatives. They don’t help you to lose weight.This is a good, common sense suggestion. Please follow it.
• DON’T use diruretics. They only dehydrate you. This is a good, common sense suggestion. Please follow it.
•  Brush your teeth constantly so you won’t be tempted to eat afterwards.I used to floss, brush, rinse, and put my retainer in so I wouldn't be tempted to eat. Especially if I was cooking something. Did you know that constant tooth brushing is actually bad for your teeth? Tooth paste contains tiny abrasives (it's why you can use tooth paste to polish/remove scuffs from certain materials). They're itty bitty, but they're still abrasive. One of the ways dentists can tell that patients have ED is from their teeth. They have acid erosion from habitual vomiting, they have gum disease from poor diet, they have thin enamel from constant tooth brushing.
• Wear a rubberband around your wrist. Snap it when you want to eat. I hate this "tip" because it treats eating food-- something a human being has to do in order to continue living-- like a compulsion or an addiction. This almost makes me cry. I know people who snap their bands when they want to pick at their skin or pull out their hair. I know people who snap their bands instead of self harming. I know people who snap their bands instead of erupting in anger at people. The rubberband on the wrist is supposed to help curb harmful behavior, destructive behavior, and here it's being advocated as something that IS harmful and destructive. Please, don't do this. YOU ARE NOT ADDICTED TO FOOD. You are not bad if you eat. You need to eat in order to live and be healthy. You need calories and fat for your brain to function and think.
• Clean something gross (toilet, litter box, boyfriend’s closet) when you want to eat. You will not want to eat after cleaning a litter box.Your body needs food to function. You need to eat to live. Please do not try to subsume your body's natural desire to live beneath filth and disgusting things. Also, unless your boyfriend has a disability preventing him from cleaning his own closet, don't clean his closet for him. What the hell. If he's old enough to date, he's old enough to clean up after himself. But that's what a lot of sexual stereotypes about weight and body shape are about aren't, they? That's where the roots often lie, don't they? In being attractive to the Patriarchy. You don't have to be skinny for your boyfriend, just like you don't have to do your boyfriend's laundry or clean your boyfriend's closet, or fulfill your boyfriend's unrealistic expectations, or lay down your life for your boyfriend. You can be your own person. If your boyfriend's closet is so disgusting it kills your appetite, dump him and date a grown up instead.
• Get a job so you’ll have to work through meal times.This is basically the worst reason to get a job ever. Also, if you aren't eating, you'll be a crap employee. Here are better reasons to get a job: so you can support yourself; so you can buy a pair of totally awesome shoes; so you can buy a car; so you can take a great vacation; so you can take a really cool class; so you can buy a piece of art you love; so you can take music lessons; so you can fund college; so you can throw a killer party; so you can buy presents for your family, for your friends, for yourself. This tip is OBVIOUSLY directed at people who are young, who are in school. Come on, ladies. You can do better than this. Work for yourself, not the body somebody's told you that you should have.
• Use smaller plates and utensils so it seems like you ate more. Like you ate more what? More ice water and celery? More air? More foods that you hate but have negative calorie values? How about eating foods that are so fulfilling that you don't need to eat as much to be satisfied? Studies have shown (not suggested, SHOWN) that full fat, full calorie meals are more satiating and lead to less consumption than reduced fat, reduced calorie meals. They also taste better.
• Chew each bite of food thoroughly and then take a sip of water between bites. You will feel full quicker and will not eat as much.The whole "chew your food thoroughly" diet was super popular in the 1800s and accomplishes nothing except tiring out your jaw. And yes, if you fill up on water to the point where it's sloshing around inside you, you won't have room for anything else. But do you really want to follow a quack diet from 200 years ago? Not that modern quack diets are any better, but come on. Next thing you know, you'll be eating graham crackers so you don't feel sexual urges (another fad diet from the 1800s).
• Buy clothes that you can’t fit into and hang them wear you can see them. This will motivate you to lose weight to fit into them.This is a totally awesome way to waste money on clothing that doesn't fit you, and to set yourself up for failure and depression because your clothing doesn't fit. Instead of spending money on clothing that doesn't fit, why not spend money on clothing that fits and feels good, clothing that you can move in and looks great on you? It doesn't matter what size you are. You deserve clothing that fits well and looks good. Really. You do. You don't have to reach a certain arbitrary magical size before you deserve to be a total bangin' hotty in stylin' clothing. Get out there and buy clothing NOW for the body you have NOW. You can look good NOW. Why deny yourself that?
• Sleep at least six hours a day. If you get less than six this can lower your metabolism by 15%. I am kind of appalled that this advocates ONLY 6 hours of sleep a night, especially as it's OBVIOUSLY directed at people in their teens/early 20s who need closer to 10 hours of sleep a night. And that's not needs-10-hours-of-sleep-to-be-skinny, that's needs-10-hours-of-sleep-to-function-and-be-healthy. Are you really going to take diet tips from a source that advocates loss of sleep? Not getting enough sleep is DIRECTLY related to depression, anxiety, memory problems, suppressed immune system, and poor performance in school/work.
• If you start to feel hungry do situps. Hunger is not a negative urge and should not be punished; physical activity should not be a punishment. Obsessive exercising is harmful.
• Pamper yourself! Give yourself a facial, paint your nails, anything to make you feel pretty.Yay! This is a tip I can totally get behind. You deserve to take care of yourself. Your body deserves to be taken care of. You deserve pretty nails and pretty hair and pretty clothing. You deserve things that make you feel good. That includes food. You deserve to eat good food that makes you feel good, in an amount that makes you feel good. You deserve to be able to listen to and understand your body's hunger/fullness signals. You deserve to be able to eat whatever you want, whenever you want, in whatever quantity you want. You deserve to feel good about eating food. You deserve to feel pretty while eating food, and after eating food, and while thinking about eating food.
• Get out of your house!Another good tip! Get out of your house! Explore someplace new! Find someplace fun! Meet new people! Stop thinking about food and experience your life for a bit! Maybe find a totally awesome coffee place and get something tasty to eat, that you enjoy eating, and that makes you feel good and full of energy afterwards.
• Keep track of everything you eat. Look at it daily for thinsperation.There is nothing innately wrong with keeping track of what you eat. There is something very wrong with keeping track of what you eat so you can punish yourself for what you've eaten. I have some foods that make me sick. I should keep a food diary for a few months so I can figure out what exactly I'm eating that makes me sick. I am unable to do this because I can't keep a food diary without becoming mentally ill-- without becoming obsessed about food, hating myself, becoming obsessed, and then restricting calories so much that I sometimes faint. That is not normal or healthy behavior. It is, in fact, very unhealthy. Please don't do that. You should not hate yourself because you eat food. You should not set yourself up for further mental stress by establishing negative practices around food logging.
• Keep good posture, burns 10% more calories when you sit up straight.This sounds ridiculous, and I wasn't able to find anything on google about this, other than uncited references on weightloss blogs. If you spend all your time worrying about how your posture affects your metabolism, and how many glasses of ice water to drink, and whether or not food is spicy enough to change your metabolism, and what foods are bad, and working out in a frenzy every time you feel hunger, you won't have time for any other thing in your life. You won't have time for friends, or to do well in school, or sports, or clubs, or concerts, or writing poetry, or shopping for cute clothing, or political activism, or any kind of hobby or interest other than calories and weight loss.
• Make a list of all the “bad” foods that you crave and tend to binge on. Each day, pick one to take out of your diet that you absolutely, no matter what, cannot eat again. Take one off the list each day until there are no more bad foods you can have.There's "binging" that's healthy behavior (example: Thanksgiving) and there's "binging" that's unhealthy behavior (constant, uncontrollable overeating until one feels pain or discomfort, possibly accompanied by vomiting or followed by fasting; referring to normal caloric intake as "binging"). If you're binging on food for real, making a list of "bad" foods (and, hello, foods have no value! They are value neutral! Unless a food gives you a rash or makes you vomit uncontrollably, it is not BAD!) and just not eating them won't address the underlying issue of WHY you are binging in the first place! Binging is sometimes a healthy emotional response, but for many people it is out of control and harmful, and THAT CAN BE ADDRESSED with a trained therapist. Instead of self medicating by denial, which will only cause further problems, treat the actual issue! This is like slapping a bandage over gangrene.
• Avoid alcohol! A shot of liquor has 100-120 calories, a glass of wine has 80 calories, a lite beer has 110-120 calories, and a regular beer has 140-170 calories. Just throwing this out there: a moderately active woman between the ages of 18-30 should consume around 2000 calories a day to maintain her weight. 100 calories is 5% of that. That's really nothing. If calorie counting is a big deal to you, you can budget for alcohol, but seriously, food (and alcohol!) is value neutral. You don't win anything by avoiding it.
• Never eat anything bigger than about a cup, your stomach will expand and then you’ll get hungry more.The physical size of your stomach has no bearing on how much hunger you feel, and the "expansion" of your stomach if you eat more than X amount of food is temporary. As the food leaves your stomach, your stomach will get smaller again. Unless you have surgery to remove or close off part of your stomach, it is not possible to decrease the size of your stomach (the organ, not the belly/tummy/torso). Additionally, there is no link between stomach (organ) size and whether a person is fat or thin. There are fat people with small stomachs and there are thin people with enormous stomachs. Further, think about this: are competitive eaters, who need large stomachs to be able to compete, big fat people, or tiny skinny people?
• Have 6 small meals a day.Many people function best when they eat numerous small meals instead of 2-4 large ones. Some people think grazing throughout the day is more suited to how humans are designed to eat and digest, and that 2-4 meals at set times are a recent development. What's most important, however, is not how many meals you eat or how large they are: what's most important is caring enough about your body to feed it, caring enough about yourself to put yourself first and setting a time to sit down and take nutrition into your body.
• Low calorie hot chocolate curbs chocolate cravings, and makes you feel full.Do you know what else curbs chocolate cravings? Chocolate. Just straight up chocolate. You deserve to eat something that tastes good and makes you feel good. You deserve to eat chocolate. If you WANT hot chocolate, go for it. Drink the fuck out of some hot chocolate. But if you want a tasty free-trade, slavery-free, high quality piece of fucking delicious gourmet top shelf chocolate? Break yourself off a piece of that and savor it. Because you are worth it. Really, you are. Here is something to consider, though: while there is nothing wrong with being hungry and eating chocolate until you are full, most people don't respond to hunger with eating chocolate until they are full. They want and eat chocolate because chocolate tastes good, not because it is a meal. If you are getting enough calories in your diet, enough fat, enough variety, you most likely will not NEED to turn to low calorie hot chocolate to feel full because you will be satiated by your meals and snacks.
• It takes 20 minutes for the brain to realize the stomach is full. Old research involving rats indicated that it takes about 20 minutes for the brain to recognize fullness. Newer research involving humans indicates that feelings of satiety, in response to blood sugar levels and other chemical changes, start kicking in about two minutes into eating. You are not a rat.
• Eat lots of fiber. It makes you feel full and takes fat with it out of your body. The natural cleansing helps improve both your energy level and overall feeling of wellness. Fiber has many benefits. It keeps you regular, can help regulate cholesterol, and helps regulate blood sugar. It absolutely does not "take fat with it out of the body." That's wishful thinking, and part of why thinspo posts are so dangerous. Sprinkled in between "drink lots of water!" and "do something to feel pretty!" and "eat several small meals a day!" you have bad information, like fiber flushes fat, or recommendations to exercise compulsively.
• Before you dig into that cake, bag of chips, candy, or whatever, take a deep breath and count to 100. Usually by the time you get to 100 you will have convinced yourself that you don’t really want it. There's a difference between "will have convinced yourself that you don't really want it" and "will realize you don't really want it." Lots of people nosh compulsively or mindlessly. It's part of being human. Fat people do it, thin people do it, healthy people do it, unhealthy people do it, bored people do it, busy people do it. But there's a fine line between deciding you don't really want something and brow beating yourself into denial. Which side of the line are you on?
• When you’re hungry chug 2 glasses (or how many you need) of straight water. It’ll make you so full This "tip" shows up so many times in different forms in this list of "helpful hints." You deserve the appropriate nutrition to fuel your body and keep you healthy. Water is a vital component of life, but it is not the only one. You deserve the full range of nutrition that human beings obtain from food.
• Celery actually burns calories. Every hour eat a stalk of it. Not only will it fill you up, but it will also get your metabolism kickin’. Celery is mostly water and fiber. It's really not very filling at all, although it's got a LOT of potassium and vitamin C in it... and a lot of sodium as well. There is no magic food that will make you magically thin. It just doesn't exist. If it did, there'd be a lot less fat people in the world. If you want to eat celery, go for it. If you have a potassium deficiency, try some celery, assuming you aren't on a sodium restricted diet. But gnawing on celery won't do anything, really. But reminding you to eat celery "every hour" adds a ritual component to it, doesn't it? Along with drinking your ice water "every hour." It's a way of parceling out and controlling your day, and of controlling your behavior, and of filling your life with minor things to worry about and obsess over instead of major things (like friends, family, school, work, pets, hobbies, etc). It contracts your life.
• Read the nutritional information. Remember, fat-free does not mean calorie-free. Also keep an eye on fiber content. Get as much fiber into your diet as you can, while cutting fat and calories. Fat tastes good. Fat-free foods frequently contain a lot of high calorie sweeteners, and salt. Low-calorie food often contains a large amount of fat, for flavor. Low-calorie and low-fat food generally tastes kind of like damp cardboard. Not exactly like, but kind of like. It's also way less satisfying both to the body in terms of hunger satiation, as well as to the emotions and to the palate. Be careful ramping up your fiber, too: too much at once will give you gas, and I don't just mean flatulence.
• Don’t eat a lot at once. Spread your food throughout the day. This will help to avoid binging and keep your metabolism going.As previously stated, a lot of people really thrive on grazing through the day. However, I have to wonder if by "binging" they mean "sitting down and eating a meal" or if they mean "sitting down and eating food until it is physically and emotionally uncomfortable to eat food." Both forms of "binging" (misunderstanding what binging is and actual binging) should be addressed with a professional: simply grazing throughout the day won't address the underlying distorted relationship with food.
• If you like to drink alcohol, you’ll like this. Make a rule: You can only drink every time you lose 2lbs. So, if you lose 4lbs a week, you can drink Friday and Saturday night. However, if you only lose 2lbs a week, you only get to drink one night. Avoid alcohol because it's empty calories, unless you're rewarding yourself for losing weight! And since alcohol has less calories than a MEAL, you can just drink a whole lot and then puke it back up! That is totally healthy! 1-2 pounds is per week is considered a healthy, sustainable amount to lose. 4 pounds in a week is quite a bit to lose.
• Stay away from Slim-fast and other so-called “healthy” candy bars and shakes… one look at the nutition facts will tell you why. With all the carbs and excess calories you may as well go eat a freakin pie or something. Not to mention the rediculous prices… save yourself the money, and the calories. You know, I really don't hear anyone other than the manufacturers refer to weight loss shakes and supplements as "healthy." I also am seriously crying on the inside that less than 200 calories (10% of what an adult woman needs, caloricly, to maintain her weight/fuel her body) is "excess" and like "eat[ing] a freakin pie or something." What pie exists, other than one made of celery and ice water, that is under 200 calories? It is incredibly disordered, to lump an under-200-calorie liquid meal and a pie in the same category. Save yourself the calories? Really?
• When having cravings drink a couple glasses of water with slices of lemons and count to 100 and it should go away.Man, water. Is there anything it can't fix? This is what the 4th time it's been mentioned? The 5th? Here, it's paired with "counting to 100" (and also: lemons). This supposes that hunger is solely about impulse control, that the hungry person has a child-like level of control. That's pretty insulting, basically.
• Eating 100 cals 4 times a day is better than eating a 400 cal meal.THESE ARE BOTH TERRIBLE, NON-SUSTAINABLE OPTIONS. The fucking GENEVA CONVENTION mandates that PRISONERS OF WAR be provided AT LEAST 1500 calories a day. Prisoners of War in Japan, a country that ignored the Geneva Convention, died while eating 600 calories a day. Look. Your body needs food to survive. Your body needs calories, and nutrients, and fat, and vitamins, and minerals, to survive. You  literally cannot survive, cannot be healthy, cannot live, on 400 calories a day whether it's 4 100 calorie meals or 1 400 calorie meal. Stop it! You are literally going to die if you consume 400 calories a day!
• An occasional binge doesn’t hurt, in fact it’s quite beneficial if you have reached a plateau (stopped losing weight). Your body will think you have stopped starving yourself, and you will drop at least a pound overnight! Just don’t binge too regularly!This is the worst. Let's dissect it! 1) an occasional binge doesn't hurt. This is true! People with healthy eating habits frequently binge (Thanksgiving! Going out for pizza with friends! Holiday cookies! Birthday cake!). This is a normal part of eating like a human being, and most people after binging compensate by reducing caloric intake without realizing it later in the day/the next day. 2) blah blah plateau starving yourself. Reducing your caloric intake fucks up your body and it starts hoarding every bit of fat it can, breaking down muscle to better conserve that fat. So yeah, flooding your body with more calories can cause it to relax and stop hoarding fat a bit, but you know what? Your metabolism is still fucked up. Congratulations. 3) Just don't binge too regularly! Ugh. Seriously.
• Someone told me that if you take a pure cold bath for 15-30 min and lower your body temp, your body burns around 200 cals for every degree it has to raise itself to reach a normal body temperature. This person tried it, a 30 min bath lowered their temp about 3-4 degrees"Jesus. I am not even going here. Hey! Someone told me that if you have a magic wand you can wish yourself thin! Let's try that, ok?

Interested in learning more about nutrition and body acceptance? Check out the following links:
http://www.fatnutritionist.com/
http://www.haescommunity.org/
http://www.lindabacon.org/HAESbook/

Intersectional Feminism

BUT IF YOU CALL YOURSELF A FEMINIST AND YOU DO NOT CARE THAT SOME WOMEN ARE GIVING BIRTH IN INHUMAN CONDITIONS AND THEIR CHILDREN ARE UNDER SUCH GRIEF THAT THEY HAVE SEWN THEIR LIPS TOGETHER THEN I AM NOT PART OF YOUR MOVEMENT. And if you cannot actively unpack your share of responsibility in these actions, which are happening right in your backyard, then one of us cannot call herself a feminist.


And if you cannot see how this issue is so deeply interconnected with all of the above, with racism, with violence on WoC, with rape culture, with colonialism, with our disdain for people from the Global South, with whose bodies are deemed human and whose are not (and as such, unrapeable), with institutionalized violence, with wars waged by our Nations on the countries where these people come from… if you cannot see all of this as part of the same landscape, as part of the same gigantic, oppressive shit puff pastry, then maybe I should not call myself a feminist. Maybe, indeed, throwing flames in the direction of feminism is all I have left.

Flavia Dzodan at Tiger Beatdown.

Tickling is not synonymous with rape.

What is Rape Culture?

Rape culture is diminishing the gravity of any sexual assault, attempted sexual assault, or culture of actual or potential coercion in any way.

Rape culture is using the word "rape" to describe something that has been done to you other than a forced or coerced sex act. Rape culture is saying things like "That ATM raped me with a huge fee" or "The IRS raped me on my taxes."

 Tickling can be unwanted physical sexual contact. Tickling can be used to manipulate and abuse someone. Tickling can be part of sexual assault and rape. Tickling without consent is pretty horrible. But when you think of tickling, do you really think of assault and abuse and rape? Do you really think of someone trying desperately to get away, begging for mercy, unable to breathe? Do you really think of someone feeling used, abused, ashamed, in pain afterward? Most people do not honestly link "tickling" with "rape" unless tickling has been used against them.

So why compare the two?

Because  Rape Culture depends in part on down playing the severity of rape.

Rape! It's just like having to pay an ATM fee!

Rape! It's just like losing a video game!

Rape! It's just like paying taxes!

Rape! It's just like playful physical interaction between two consenting persons!

Tickling is often flirtatious, a way of expressing physical attraction and expressing a desire for physical contact. Tickling can lead to further physical touching, including consensual sex. So if tickling is just like rape (only you're  laughing!!!!) then rape is just sex, right? It's no big deal! Women, they sure do complain a lot!

This is Rape Culture, and we are soaking in it.

Girls Worth Kissing

 

Women who are sexually experienced are not any less worthwhile or deserving than women who are sexually inexperienced, but sentiments like this enforce the pernicious double standard of stud-versus-slut and reinforce the notion that some women are worthwhile and "pure" (the ones who aren't "easily kissed") while others are "impure" ("easily kissed"), not worthy of respect, and "asking for it."

This is why women who are sexually assaulted and raped are quizzed relentlessly on their dating habits, sexual history, clothing, alcohol use, flirting style, hair style, everything. This is why women who are sexually assaulted and raped are treated as criminals. This is why some women are considered "unrapeable," that no matter what they are doing or what they say it's not rape because they deserve it: they're poor, they're stupid, they're sexually experienced, they're sex workers. 

This is why sexual predators are able to walk free and attack other women: because as we all know, some women are simply worth LESS than other women, and it's not REALLY rape, they probably liked it. Because girls WORTH "kissing" are not EASILY "kissed." The rest? Not really worth anything at all, let alone justice or protection.

This is Rape Culture, and we're all soaking in it.

Team Bella

Inspired by Riot Nrrd's Team Bella t-shirt.

contempt for poverty is violence

http://www.aviewfromthecave.com/2011/06/coretta-scott-king-on-poverty.html

Idealized super heroe(ine)s

Jamie McKelvie. Read more here about the way female super heroes are portrayed.

Body Hate

Intuitive Eating

Intuitive Eating Principles

• Reject the Diet Mentality. Throw out the diet books and magazine articles that offer you false hope of losing weight quickly, easily, and permanently. Get angry at the lies that have led you to feel as if you were a failure every time a new diet stopped working and you gained back all of the weight. If you allow even one small hope to linger that a new and better diet might be lurking around the corner, it will prevent you from being free to rediscover Intuitive Eating.

• Honor Your Hunger. Keep your body biologically fed with adequate energy and carbohydrates. Otherwise you can trigger a primal drive to overeat. Once you reach the moment of excessive hunger, all intentions of moderate, conscious eating are fleeting and irrelevant. Learning to honor this first biological signal sets the stage for re-building trust with yourself and food.

• Make Peace with Food. Call a truce, stop the food fight! Give yourself unconditional permission to eat. If you tell yourself that you can't or shouldn't have a particular food, it can lead to intense feelings of deprivation that build into uncontrollable cravings and, often, bingeing When you finally “give-in” to your forbidden food, eating will be experienced with such intensity, it usually results in Last Supper overeating, and overwhelming guilt.

• Challenge the Food Police. Scream a loud "NO" to thoughts in your head that declare you're "good" for eating under 1000 calories or "bad" because you ate a piece of chocolate cake. The Food Police monitor the unreasonable rules that dieting has created . The police station is housed deep in your psyche, and its loud speaker shouts negative barbs, hopeless phrases, and guilt-provoking indictments. Chasing the Food Police away is a critical step in returning to Intuitive Eating.

• Respect Your Fullness. Listen for the body signals that tell you that you are no longer hungry. Observe the signs that show that you're comfortably full. Pause in the middle of a meal or food and ask yourself how the food tastes, and what is your current fullness level?

• Discover the Satisfaction Factor. The Japanese have the wisdom to promote pleasure as one of their goals of healthy living In our fury to be thin and healthy, we often overlook one of the most basic gifts of existence--the pleasure and satisfaction that can be found in the eating experience. When you eat what you really want, in an environment that is inviting and conducive, the pleasure you derive will be a powerful force in helping you feel satisfied and content. By providing this experience for yourself, you will find that it takes much less food to decide you've had "enough".

• Honor Your Feelings Without Using Food. Find ways to comfort , nurture, distract, and resolve your issues without using food. Anxiety, loneliness, boredom, anger are emotions we all experience throughout life. Each has its own trigger, and each has its own appeasement. Food won't fix any of these feelings. It may comfort for the short term, distract from the pain, or even numb you into a food hangover. But food won't solve the problem. If anything, eating for an emotional hunger will only make you feel worse in the long run. You'll ultimately have to deal with the source of the emotion, as well as the discomfort of overeating.

• Respect Your Body. Accept your genetic blueprint. Just as a person with a shoe size of eight would not expect to realistically squeeze into a size six, it is equally as futile (and uncomfortable) to have the same expectation with body size. But mostly, respect your body, so you can feel better about who you are. It's hard to reject the diet mentality if you are unrealistic and overly critical about your body shape.

• Exercise--Feel the Difference. Forget militant exercise. Just get active and feel the difference. Shift your focus to how it feels to move your body, rather than the calorie burning effect of exercise. If you focus on how you feel from working out, such as energized, it can make the difference between rolling out of bed for a brisk morning walk or hitting the snooze alarm. If when you wake up, your only goal is to lose weight, it's usually not a motivating factor in that moment of time.

• Honor Your Health--Gentle Nutrition. Make food choices that honor your health and taste buds while making you feel well. Remember that you don't have to eat a perfect diet to be healthy. You will not suddenly get a nutrient deficiency or gain weight from one snack, one meal, or one day of eating. It's what you eat consistently over time that matters, progress not perfection is what counts.

from What Is Intuitive Eating?

Audre Lorde -- caring for myself

Shriek! Shriek! Caw! Caw! SKREEEEEEEE!

Lorde set out actively to challenge white women, confronting issues of racism in feminist thought. She maintained that a great deal of the scholarship of white feminists served to augment the oppression of black women, a conviction that led to angry confrontation, most notably in a scathing open letter addressed to radical lesbian feminist Mary Daly, to which Lorde stated she received no reply

Audre Lorde