laverne cox is well on her way to becoming one of the most important, inspiring feminist icons of our time don’t even look at me if you think differently.
A co-worker closed the door to the staff room behind him.
It locked automatically
and I started planning what I could use as a weapon:
smash the glass beside the fridge into his eye.
pick up the fork next to me and sink it into his leg.
claw him across the face if I couldn’t get to anything in time.
As I calculated how hard it would be to shove his body weight off of me,
he finished making his lunch, said, “Sup,” and left,
the door automatically locking behind him.
I expect if I told him I was prepared to stab him with the corner of my staff ID if I had to,
he would say what I’ve heard too often, the one we all know
but are getting wearily suspicious of:
Not all men are like That.
When I was eleven, all the girls in my class got sent to self-defence
because they assumed we’d need it one day.
When I was twelve, there was a prostitute’s body dumped in the river next to my house
because someone thought she was disposable.
When I was thirteen, it happened again and this time the man went to jail
and people stood outside the courtroom and held up signs that he did the right thing.
When I was fourteen, my friend showed up to a sleepover late, chest heaving from sobbing
and from running four blocks after getting chased by a man that followed her off the bus.
When I was fifteen, my mother accused me of being a Man Hater
and I said, “No, but god, would you blame me if I was?”
I got catcalled and then got laughed at when I flipped them off.
they pulled up beside me and I clutched my bag tighter,
my hand going in for my keys and my mind going over how their noses would look
if I smashed them in with my elbow.
“What’s the big deal,” the guy at the steering wheel asked. “We’re just complimenting you. We’re not like That.”
Sorry, but I’m not going to trust you in case I end up on a poster labelled ‘MISSING.’
Even if you seem like the nicest guy, I’ll still have one hand holding my keys
as the only knife I’m allowed, because I don’t know how far you’re going to take it:
if you won’t back off when I tell you I don’t want to date you
if you’ll shout BITCH at me when I don’t respond well to your catcall
if you’ll expect my body as a reward for treating me like a human being
if you’ll try to take what you think you’re owed by being a man
if you’ll turn me into another statistic that people shudder away from.
I have been trained to assume that it’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing
or face the consequences.
I don’t know if you’ll nod when I reject you
or pump me full of bullets.
Every single woman I’ve talked to has a story where they haven’t felt safe in their own body
because of what a man said or did.
Not all men are like That, but god, it’s enough.
"
—‘Welcome to Girlhood: None Of Us Are Safe,’ theappleppielifestyle. (via pale-afternoon)
Men don’t really have empathy or self-awareness, so explaining and educating will always be useless. From my experience, they learn better if you feed them their own medicine first. They can’t conceive that something is unpleasant or morally wrong until they experience it themselves.
I don’t want to believe this. I really, really don’t want to believe this. But then I remember that many men don’t fight against rape until either they are raped, or until they imagine someone they are connected to being raped, because it’s not wrong until it affects them. I remember that from birth people say that “boys will be boys,” and let them get away with shit even though those youngest years are the ones when you’re supposed to learn empathy. I remember that Hollywood is built on the assumption that women will watch and empathize with men, but men won’t watch and empathize with women. I remember all of the times I’ve watched an argument online when a woman described her personal experiences to a man to try to get him to understand, and he responded with “well that’s never happened to me, I’ve never seen it so you must be lying.”
And as much as I hate to, I have to admit that it is true.
LET ME JUST POINT OUT THE VARIOUS FLAWS OF LOGIC HERE. FIRST OF ALL DARWINS POWER IS TO LITERALLY ADAPT TO ANYTHING IN THE EFFING UNIVERSE. HIS POWERS DEEMED IT TOO DANGEROUS TO FIGHT THE HULK AND TELEPORTED HIM TO ANOTHER COUNTRY. HE ONCE BECAME PURE COSMIC EFFING ENERGY AND SHORTLY AFTER REMATERIALIZED AS A HUMAN BEING TO PREVENT HIS DEATH. DARWIN IS LITERALLY INEFFINGVINCIBLE. AND YOU MEAN TO TELL ME THAT A PATHETIC BALL OF KINETIC ENERGY FROM SEBASTIAN SHAW MERKS HIM?!?!?! THEY OBVIOUSLY ARE OUT TO KILL THE BLACK MAN IN THE PLOT AND LITERALLY WROTE THIS SCENE WITH NO REGARDS TO DARWINS POWERS WHATSOEVER AND ITS FRUSTRATING THAT THEY WOULD GO OUT OF THEIR WAY TO KILL HIM OFF LIKE THAT
I’m saying. Even in sci fi we ain’t safe
in my headcanon darwin literally became a being of energy and ascended to another plain of existence so he doesn’t have to deal with anymore of this white nonsense
i was SO tight about this bullshit
Years later and I STILL get so mad about this
they killed the one fucking x-man whose power is literally SURVIVAL. That’s his power. He can DO ANYTHING IT TAKES TO SURVIVE! Shaw says “adapt to this??” HE SHOULD HAVE BEEN ABLE TO.
In addition to the above mentioned things he’s survived, when shot with a gun made to kill ANYTHING WITH A NERVOUS SYSTEM, he turned into a SPONGE, and then back again.
Once, he touched a goddess of death. And to survive that, HE BECAME A DAMN DEATH GOD HIMSELF. AND YOU’RE TELLING ME HE CAN’T SURVIVE SOME FUCKING KINETIC ENERGY?? BULLSHIT I SAY. BULL FUCKING SHIT.
so here’s a thought: who cares if food stamp recipients test positive for drugs. we still deserve food.
Oh I don’t know. I think if you test positive for drugs, you’re probably spending it on drugs rather than food. So no, they don’t deserve it, they will when they quit. I’m not putting my taxes towards that.
u literally just said u dont think addicts deserve to eat lmao u know what an addiction is right? u know how that works?
maybe walmart should stop selling drugs, u know how easy it is to go to walmart and get drugs with food stamps, so it only really enables us. plus have you ever tried to eat a food stamp? tastes nothing like food.
