Politics, Human Rights, and Civic Responsibility

A conglomeration of social democratic and humanitarian ideas about US and international politics and the global community as a whole.

Reblogged from ohdearitsfatal

queensassyofthefatties:

Lewis’s law is an observation she made in 2012 that states “the comments on any article about feminism justify feminism.” Lewis has written frequently about misogynist hate directed at women online.[8]

Can we just repeat that a few more times, 

“The comments on any article about feminism justify feminism.”

“The comments on any article about feminism justify feminism.”

(Source: pinkwithlace)

Posted May 11, 2013 at 8:34 pm 59732 notes

Reblogged from occupy-my-blog

(Source: christopherstreet)

Posted May 11, 2013 at 4:37 pm 35 notes

"I have to wonder how many NRA members would shriek if the Federal Government passed a law requiring all gun owners to participate monthly in a government-run militia. And if it was worded right? They would have no Constitutional right to complain. To me, that sounds like the best method of handling gun ownership. Currently, gun ownership is a “right” but a lazy right. How many gun owners don’t regularly use their guns? Keep them in a forgotten closet or the like in case of emergency? So let’s require all gun owners to belong to government-run militias as dictated in the Constitution. The militias will include physical exercise regimens, gun safety and protocol, target practice, and the like. Oh, and a gun buyback program so that anyone who doesn’t want to belong to the militia can opt out by no longer owning a gun."

Reblogged from liberalsarecool

Robert (via azspot)

Posted May 10, 2013 at 11:00 am 973 notes

Reblogged from occupy-my-blog

(Source: questionall)

Posted May 9, 2013 at 1:16 am 194 notes

"Here’s the thing. Men in our culture have been socialized to believe that their opinions on women’s appearance matter a lot. Not all men buy into this, of course, but many do. Some seem incapable of entertaining the notion that not everything women do with their appearance is for men to look at. This is why men’s response to women discussing stifling beauty norms is so often something like “But I actually like small boobs!” and “But I actually like my women on the heavier side, if you know what I mean!” They don’t realize that their individual opinion on women’s appearance doesn’t matter in this context, and that while it might be reassuring for some women to know that there are indeed men who find them fuckable, that’s not the point of the discussion.

Women, too, have been socialized to believe that the ultimate arbiters of their appearance are men, that anything they do with their appearance is or should be “for men.” That’s why women’s magazines trip over themselves to offer up advice on “what he wants to see you wearing” and “what men think of these current fashion trends” and “wow him with these new hairstyles.” While women can and do judge each other’s appearance harshly, many of us grew up being told by mothers, sisters, and female strangers that we’ll never “get a man” or “keep a man” unless we do X or lose some fat from Y, unless we moisturize/ trim/ shave/ push up/ hide/ show/ ”flatter”/ paint/ dye/ exfoliate/ pierce/ surgically alter this or that.

That’s also why when a woman wears revealing clothes, it’s okay, in our society, to assume that she’s “looking for attention” or that she’s a slut and wants to sleep with a bunch of guys. Because why else would a woman wear revealing clothes if not for the benefit of men and to communicate her sexual availability to them, right? It can’t possibly have anything to do with the fact that it’s hot out or it’s more comfortable or she likes how she looks in it or everything else is in the laundry or she wants to get a tan or maybe she likes women and wants attention from them, not from men?

The result of all this is that many men, even kind and well-meaning men, believe, however subconsciously, that women’s bodies are for them. They are for them to look at, for them to pass judgment on, for them to bless with a compliment if they deign to do so. They are not for women to enjoy, take pride in, love, accept, explore, show off, or hide as they please. They are for men and their pleasure."

Reblogged from fightmediocrity

Why You Shouldn’t Tell That Random Girl On The Street That She’s Hot » Brute Reason (via brute-reason)

Posted May 7, 2013 at 7:22 pm 41355 notes

Reblogged from liberalsarecool

Posted May 5, 2013 at 3:09 pm 3723 notes

current: May 1 is International Workers’ Day and workers across the world today are taking to the streets to protest low wages, unfair conditions and rampant unemployment. From Spain (where unemployment is at 27 percent) to Greece (where protests halted ferry service) to Bangladesh (where poor working conditions became painfully evident after a factory recently collapsed and killed more than 400 people): hundreds of thousands across the globe are making their voices heard. In the United States, May Day demonstrations may be tamer, but the income equality has never been wider. Every year, ratios are compiled that compare a company CEO’s salary to that of the average company worker. According to the latest data Bloomberg compiled this week, the average ratio across S&P 500 companies is an astonishing 204 to 1. That ratio is up 20 percent since 2009 and, even more startling, it was only 24 to 1 in 1965.

Reblogged from occupy-my-blog

current:

May 1 is International Workers’ Day and workers across the world today are taking to the streets to protest low wages, unfair conditions and rampant unemployment. From Spain (where unemployment is at 27 percent) to Greece (where protests halted ferry service) to Bangladesh (where poor working conditions became painfully evident after a factory recently collapsed and killed more than 400 people): hundreds of thousands across the globe are making their voices heard.

In the United States, May Day demonstrations may be tamer, but the income equality has never been wider.

Every year, ratios are compiled that compare a company CEO’s salary to that of the average company worker. According to the latest data Bloomberg compiled this week, the average ratio across S&P 500 companies is an astonishing 204 to 1. That ratio is up 20 percent since 2009 and, even more startling, it was only 24 to 1 in 1965.

Posted May 2, 2013 at 12:33 am 146 notes

The effects of unchecked criminalization: Teen charged with felony for science experiment

Reblogged from ihopericksantorum

orangelemonart:

aka14kgold:

onebigpear:

fuckyeahfeminists:

This is what the school-to-prison pipeline looks like. This is how black youth criminalized.

  1. She was doing a science experiment
  2. She’s being charged as an ADULT
  3. She’s being charged with a FELONY

If this all goes the way the prosecution wants, this young woman will be LEGALLY discriminated against for the rest of her life. No voting, housing discrimination,  employment discrimination (as if getting a job while black isn’t hard enough), etc. etc.

There is a petition up … spread the word.

http://www.change.org/petitions/the-bartow-police-and-bartow-high-school-drop-charges-against-kiera-wilmot

Hey, remember this from yesterday? Go ahead and hit up the petition. 

She’s sixteen and no one was hurt.Every fucking white sixteen year old boy I know does this out on the sidewalk, not even in  classroom environment, and get off scot free. Sign people, if there’s one thing towns hate, its petitions and media attention.

Posted May 1, 2013 at 5:56 pm 15165 notes

"The ‘difference’ between men and women is created in and by culture but is regarded as natural and biological. The huge difficulty that so many women and men have in seeing femininity and masculinity as socially constructed rather than natural, attests to the strenght and force of culture. The French feminist theorist Colette Guillaumin explains the difficulty with this cultural idea that women are ‘different’ (Guillaumin, 1996). If women are ‘different’ then there must be something they are different from. That something turns out to be ‘men’ who are not themselves ‘different’ from anything, they just are. It is only women who are understood to be different, ‘Men do not differ from anything… We are different - it is a fundamental characteristic… We succeed in the grammatical and logical feat of being different all by ourselves. Our nature is difference’ (Guillaumin, 1996, p. 95)."

Reblogged from ohdearitsfatal

Sheila Jeffreys, Beauty and Misogyny: Harmful Cultural Practices in the West (via sociophilia)

Posted April 25, 2013 at 4:03 pm 210 notes

Just One More Chapter...: 1The first time a guy catcalled me,I was barely a teen, in shorts...

Reblogged from onqueerstreet

onqueerstreet:

1

The first time a guy catcalled me,

I was barely a teen, in shorts and a tank top.

It was eighty degrees outside and Iwaswalkingwithmylittlesisterand

my s t e p m o t h e r told me,

“It’s a compliment. He thinks you’re pretty.”

I didn’t think it, but it resonated in me that…

Posted April 25, 2013 at 8:02 am 14 notes