thiccglobster:

1790
he takes the newborn girl from his wife
carries her to the neighboring room
cradles her head with his left hand
and gently snaps her neck with his right

1890
a wet towel to wrap her in
grains of rice and
sand in the nose
a mother shares the trick with her daughter-in-law
i had to do it she says
as did my mother
and her mother before her

1990
a newspaper article reads
a hundred baby girls were found buried
behind a doctor’s house in a neighboring village
the wife wonders if that’s where they took her
she imagines her daughter becoming the soil 
fertilizing the roots that feed this country

1998
oceans away in a toronto basement
a doctor performs an illegal abortion
on an indian woman who already has a daughter
one burden is enough she says

2006
it’s easier than you think my aunties tell my mother
they know a family
who’ve done it three times
they know a clinic. they should get mumma the number. 
the doctor even prescribes pills that guarantee a boy.
they worked for the woman down the street they say
now she has three sons

2012
twelve hospitals in the toronto area
refuse to reveal a baby’s gender to expecting families
until the thirtieth week of pregnancy 
all twelve hospitals are located in areas with high south
asian immigrant populations

- female infanticide | female feticide - Rupi Kaur

I do kind of worry about not revealing gender to the parents until the baby is 30 weeks along in effort to prevent aborting a pregnancy that would result in a girl. I know it’s in effort to prevent gender discrimination in a wanted pregnancy but I hope they do something to protect that child once it’s born. Plus by 30 weeks there’s still 10 weeks in the pregnancy left to go, what’s to stop a family causing harm to the mother in effort to kill the baby?

I guess for perspective I found out the gender of my baby via blood testing at 10 weeks along, it’s not 100% accurate so they still needed to confirm it at the anatomy scan which is usually done around 20 weeks, and it could feasibly sort of get confirmed by I think 15-20 weeks, although the result would still be questionable since the genitals can look kind of ambiguous until later in the pregnancy (I’ve also heard first hand from some people that babies they had been told were boys the whole pregnancy turned out to be girls that were just quite swollen in utero).

I can’t claim to know much about the subject and I am definitely not in support of allowing gender discrimination against babies to continue but if people are so hell bent on not having a daughter that they would kill a baby, wouldn’t it be better to not prevent them from getting an abortion?

robotjane:

the-indecorous-flower:

Hey genderists, if a woman is anyone who says they’re a woman.
Can I be a trans woman just because I say I am one?

Yes, you can. Are you?

oh this is probably going to get me crucified if anyone is still looking at me but I don’t care.

So I wrote the original post two years ago, and it is I think not very nuanced and pretty rude and unnecessary of me. 

I don’t really remember if I was debating with anyone on Tumblr at the time that started me off on making a post like that or whatever but it doesn’t really matter now. I’m not going to write a whole essay about it because I’m pregnant and I don’t really have the brain power anymore but I’ll just say I don’t think like this anymore.

Overall I don’t think it’s a very positive or healthy mindset and it doesn’t really contribute anything to anyones life to make posts like this on social media.

esmethesciencewitch:

esmethesciencewitch:

Revolutionary parenting hack:

If your child is in the middle of some activity and clearly enjoying it (and wasn’t supposed to be doing something else instead), DO NOT interrupt them and have them do chores that will “only take 5 minutes or so!”

You haven’t asked them to do anything before they got out the Legos, started reading a chapter of their book or painting the complicated picture, or began playing their video game.

As a result of being repeatedly interrupted, they will learn that their presence in public space of the household=availability to do chores, so they will make themselves scarce so you can’t find them and order them around. They will also become suspicious of your efforts to engage with them as they play, as they’ve learned that these pleasantries are a prelude to “Take out the trash”, or “move your boots and vacuum the entryway, there’s dirt everywhere ”.

“But I need my children to help me around the house!”, I hear you cry. I understand. Children should not be treated like royalty and left to their own devices 24/7.

An alternative is to give the kids a clearly delineated chore chart and stick to it, resisting the urge to add anything to it. There are some chores that are easier and quicker with two people, though. A (in my opinion) even better option is to divide the child’s day into “on-duty” and “off-duty ” time. When they’re on-duty, you can interrupt them as before, but you have *consulted with your child beforehand * and they understand that during this time they can relax, but they must be ready to jump in and lend a hand.

That way they won’t start trying to level up in their video game or break out the clay and make stuff. When they are off-duty, you leave them alone and their only responsibilities are to clean up whatever mess they make at the end of this time.

Also, if they are tearing around the house or whining about being bored, don’t make them do chores so they will “have something to do”; this could make the child conflate extra chores with punishment for whining and make them reluctant to help out when you randomly tell them to at other times because they might think they’re being punished but they have NO IDEA WHAT THEY DID. And IMO children should see chores as things everyone has to do no matter what, not punishments.

I may seem unqualified to offer parenting advice as I have no kids, but I was talking with my dad today and he said: “I wish you didn’t hide from us in your room so much, but every time your mom walked by she’d give you a chore to do, so I can’t blame you for that.” A kid who hides in their room to play has an entirely different relationship to the family than the child who sprawls on the livingroom floor and excitedly describes the city they are building out of Legos.

And today, in times of Covid I play a complicated game of hide-and-seek with my mother as I try to do my online coding homework and apply for jobs. I am now attempting to turn my bedroom into my own tiny office because if I work in our home office, she’ll find me and go “I can’t attach this file to my email,” and so on.

Children *have* to obey their parents when they are young. But true respect and honoring collective responsibilities is stronger than forced obedience. If you demonstrate to your children that you respect them and their time, they will reciprocate.

Tl;dr if your child is “always hiding in their room”, there is a reason for it and setting a regular routine and boundaries will benefit both of you in the long run.

the-spence:

catlogicdefiesall:

sickofeverythingmale:

maleexclusionarymale:

What is y'all’s reasoning for “respecting” pronouns of trans people? I feel like there is an inherent problem with this, which is that it implies a respect for gender itself. It shows you refer to people based on their gender and not their sex, giving credence to the ideology of gender identity. I get the urge to show respect but I feel like even otherwise harmless trans people are doing damage by putting a lot of importance on what gendered pronouns people use for them.

I think it’s a personal choice for what a person wants to do. I use sex based pronouns, but I’m not going to hate on other radfems or others who don’t. I’m not going to tell them what to do or that it’s wrong even if I disagree. Demanding people use your preferred pronouns is the problem that trans people have and need to sort out. 

I agree, @maleexclusionarymale. It all does damage. Using their “preferred pronouns” - in other words, lying - implies you are going along with their fantasies. Trans is a wholly misogynistic concept.  I don’t care how old they are or why they’re doing it, whether they’re the children forced into it, the delusional, the traumatised, the personality disordered, the fetishistic, or what. I’m not lying for them. This whole thing is entirely malignant. 

I don’t respect their “pronoun choices” online, but IRL I’ll probably have to because they’ll literally try to fucking murder me if I don’t.

In most cases I will use whatever pronouns a person requests, with a few exceptions that I’ll explain in a minute. The reason why I do this is because I understand that a lot of trans people are just living with dysphoria for whatever reason and this is how they deal with it. It’s not my business what the cause of the dysphoria is and if they’re an adult it’s not my concern what they do to their bodies or how they deal with it. 

Generally though my exceptions to this are on a case by case basis. I’ll try and name a few though;

1. For people along the lines of Jonathan Yaniv. Whatever the reasoning as to their “trans” status (are they posing? are they trans and also predators? What do I care.) I don’t think they deserve respect or facilitation. Since these are awful people who have raped or murdered, I’d be quite happy knowing that they live the rest of their imprisoned lives as uncomfortably as possible.

2. People who use made up pronouns like they identify as a starchild or whatever. I don’t think I should accommodate otherkin. It’s just way too stupid. I’ll use male, female, or neutral and that’s it.

3. This one is extremely case by case depending on ages/circumstances. But children I would take with a grain of salt and just ‘wait and see’. In some extreme circumstances dysphoria in children can be a case of the parents forcing the child or making the child feel this way. So it would really just depend. (I 100% do not support the transitioning of anyone who is not fully grown.)

4. Someone who I know for a fact with no uncertainty is lying or posing.

Anyway yeah it’s very case by case. I don’t think a trans person is going to murder me for getting their pronouns wrong. I just think that being critical of gender as an establishment means I also have to be a dick to people who aren’t being a dick to me.

Thing I learned while I cut back on tumblr number 2;

When it comes to caring about all the shit happening in the world it’s absolutely ok to set a boundary for yourself. Protest what you can but also take care of yourself? If you have anxiety issues (like me) and you find that hearing about climate change or Americas political situation is stressful for you, switch off a while, especially if you think you have to engage in debates. You don’t have to engage in a debate at any point, you don’t owe that to anybody.

Also there is so much shit going on that you cannot possibly engage with all of it as a single person, when you think about it the human mind really hasn’t yet adapted to the fact we now get global news instantly and continuously. It’s ok to feel as if you can’t keep up with it all because there is now literally a whole globe filled with problems at our fingertips now. 

So yeah, just switch off occasionally, do something to renew yourself. I like to go walking on the beach, dip my toes in the waves coming in and collect shells. 

tirsynni:

It’s occurred to me that there’s a lot of “not having kids” talk based on the concept of unfit parents. So here’s also this:

Wanting or not wanting kids is damned important.

Beyond the whole bit of me knowing that I could not successfully parent… I do not want to parent a child. It’s that simple. I don’t want to. And you know what? That is enough. There’s a whole laundry list of why it’s important to the nonexistent child that I not be their parent, but me not wanting a child is enough. People don’t need children. Children won’t make you whole. No one should have children to act as a band-aid or marriage aid. It’s okay to not have kids and it’s okay to not want one.

On the flip side, if you want kids but have some sort of impairment which creates a barrier, investigate your options. It may turn out that barrier is too high and too thick. Awful, but again: it says nothing terrible about you if you can’t or don’t have kids. Otherwise, there might be resources, social circles or social services, which can help. Just be fully aware of that barrier.

But yeah. If you don’t want kids, you don’t need to make excuses. You don’t need to talk about how you would be a terrible parent or whatever. Not wanting a child is enough. Period.

^^^

Personally, I had a barrier (past tense intended) to having children. My mental health had issues because I was suffering from trauma I hadn’t unpacked.

So I decided not to have kids until I had dealt with all that. Sure I’m having children a bit later than all my sisters did but I think it’s worth it because in that time I went to two rounds of one-on-one therapy, group therapy, and then a parenting course.

I’m really tired and I need to get something out of my system. 

If any group tries to tell you a particular facet of society is bad just by virtue of being that thing. Then there’s probably something wrong with that group you’re a part of.

Having gone from one extreme to another I feel I’m in a healthy middle point now, and this is also probably gonna lose me some followers but who cares. 

I’ve spoke very openly about this in the past but I used to identify as a male. I identified as such because I was sexually abused and the abuse did something to my mind that meant I felt the need to be seen as a man and had dysphoria, but when I started addressing that in therapy it went away. This happens. But it’s not always the case.

Some people have dysphoria and therapy won’t make it go away. 

I still think doctors need to be more ethical about the way they approach this, eg; not medically transitioning underaged people who’s bodies have yet to fully develop, supplying correct and accurate information to trans people about medical interventions so they can make the best decision available to them, fully ensuring that people like me do not go unidentified and receive the correct help for their unique circumstances, and just basically not experimenting on human beings?

But I feel like if someone is an adult and is fully informed, it’s not my place to criticise their decision to transition medically to whatever extent they want to. 

I’m not going break down my beliefs for anyone, they’re mine and nobody needs to know but I feel what is important to get out there for me right now is this;

The way a lot of this community has behaved, myself included. Is adding to the overall amount of hatred that exists in this world.

There’s room for kindness in your critical assessment. Thinking critically does not mean you have to be harsh, it just means you need to make a reasonable assessment free of bias and agenda.

In the past I’ve said things that were critical yes, but not critically thought out. I feel like in the past I’ve acted as if it was trans people as a whole that were the issue, but now I think that’s not right. Some of them are bad and cause problems for sure, I’ve seen the evidence to back that up. I think that problem needs to be address and the community they’re a part of doesn’t need to shelter them. But at the end of the day these people don’t speak for all trans people, hell not even the communities protecting them from consequences speak for each individual.

So I guess as a rule of thumb, be critical, but be kind.

Also be very careful about what rabbit holes you go down just in case you get lost and don’t come out any better for it.

riparian-ripuarian:

the-indecorous-flower:

thatadult:

sungawddess:

ta-nehisicoates:

my girl poured her diva cup out into her plant and now the plant’s alive again her pussy voodoo

I have questions…

this is green consciousness and ecofeminism

Period blood is full of nutrients and can act as a plant fertilizer. Which isn’t much help if you use disposables like pads and tampons, BUT if you use moon cups you can pour them onto your plant OR if you use reusable pads you can soak/rinse them in warm water before you wash them and pour that water onto your plants.

I wonder if it’s compostable, because it’s not just blood, it’s uterine lining, right? I feel like the compost pile in question would have to be very mature and up to a high temperature though. Idk, fascinating!

yeah of course it’s compostable. That said you’ll wanna look at what water source your town is using before you use your period blood as a plant fertilizer. 

Where I live we use underground pipes that are well maintained to transport drinking water to houses, but if you’re using the water table or bore water then probably don’t pour your blood out into the ground because you might contaminate the supply.

I recently got reuseable pads and I use the rinse water on the plants. The garden is looking healthy :)