“Are you saying that murderers are right in the head??”
No there’s definitely something wrong with someone’s way of thinking if they can justify killing innocent people, but this doesn’t necessarily mean that they have a mental illness.
Extremist beliefs isn’t a mental illness.
Bigotry isn’t a mental illness.
Entitlement isn’t a mental illness.
Hate isn’t a mental illness.
Having a dysfunctional moral compass isn’t a mental illness.
We need to stop categorizing all these things as some undefinable “mental illness” and start looking at what we do as a society to develop and justify these things to a degree where people use them to justify killing.
Yes!
Dehumanization is something you Have to look for. If the murderer doesn’t see the person they killed as a person, then mental illness is probably not the main factor there.
Plenty of people murder women, poc, lgbt people, people of other religions etc. because they don’t see them as people.
Think about genocides - they aren’t perpetrated by big group of people/a government who all got mentally ill together the same way at the same time somehow, they just didn’t consider what they did murder because they didn’t see the victims as people.
I’m probably going to wind up reblogging this more than once because it is really fucking important.
Remember when the policy itself was big news? And everyone was rightly shocked and horrified and made Big Noises?
Well after that they did reunite some kids with their parents. Many of these kids were so traumatized that they avoided their parents even once they were reunited, because the separation messed them up so bad.
None of this is remotely okay.
I say this not because I think we don’t know that, but because I think we need to remind ourselves about it for precisely the reason this tweet describes.
Anonymous: "The differences between bisexuality and pansexuality are LGBT-phobic" Okay I get how they're claiming its bi and transphobic - it's bullshit but the argument has been made. How in the fuck is pansexuality supposedly homophobic and lesbophobic?
so women are supposed to grin and bear the books, the comics, the movies, the plays, the tv shows, the stories, the sci-fi, the translated ancient poems, the fucking millennia of men writing about their self inserts torturing women and it being declared as High Art by other men, we’re supposed to read it in our free time, study it in classrooms, include their styles in our own writing, accept their cultural influence as natural, watch it in the cinema, write about it, talk about it, accept it, aspire it, but men can’t tolerate three seconds of female wish fulfilment of a woman snapping the wrist of a creep without feeling personally kicked in the balls.
This reminds me of something I observed in college while I was doing my honors thesis on women in modern horror films. I watched a LOT of horror during that time as part of my research, and sometimes that was done with my family around.
And my dad and brothers? Were deeply disturbed by the movie Jennifer’s Body. I was flabbergasted. It’s not scary! It’s not even that gory. But they were horrified by it. These men who grew up on 70s slashers were legitimately shook by 90 minutes of Megan Fox eating a few teenage boys, mostly off-screen.
Similarly, my all-male reading panel for my thesis? Were so disturbed by my synopsis of the film Teeth that they couldn’t even talk about it. One of them said he couldn’t look at his wife for a week after reading it.
Again, grown-ass men who study and teach media for a living. Who definitely watch and enjoy horror movies. One of whom was a huge Tarantino buff. We watched and read worse in his intro to mass media class! But one movie about a girl whose vag could bite was enough to haunt him.
Then of course you have things like the Gone Girl backlash–men yelling that Amy Dunne is evil and women clamoring to assure everyone that they know she is not someone to emulate–the backlash against Carol Danvers, and, more recently, the griping from MRAs against the upcoming film Hustlers, which is about strippers scamming their Wall Street clients.
My conclusion? Most men–at least most straight, cisgender men, who are both my sample population and most of the ones whining that Carol is a “villain”–are perfectly fine with, and desensitized to, media where men do violence to women (horror movies), or men do violence to men (horror and action movies). They’re even sort of fine when women do violence to women (“ooooo cat fight!”).
But they get intensely uncomfortable when women are depicted doing any kind of violence to men, especially in films that tilt the balance of power to the other side of the m/f gender binary beyond a single moment or scene.
So woman as flesh-eating monster with men as her preferred cuisine? Woman who responds to unwanted sexual contact by biting it off? Woman who frames her cheating husband for murder? Woman whose response to harassment–behavior that many of the loudest whiners know is both creepy and reflective of their own thoughts/actions–is to break something?
Too scary. Unacceptable. Disturbing. These men hate being presented with the idea, even in fiction, that their position of power is socially constructed, that it could easily be flipped the other way. It terrifies them.
In feeling that terror, they experience a tiny modicum of what living, existing, moving, being perceived as a woman in the world is like.
every time I see that post about the 4chan incel dude turning his life around bc he started raising shrimp or whatever im like yeah okay man but do you still hate women? you still hate women bro?
to expect exemplary behaviour from someone who was in the rock bottom of a system designed to radicalize these disillusioned young men and turn them into white supremacists and by himself found a way to get out of it and realize he can do better, and then treat him as unsalvageable and permanently damaged because he used bad words, is why this same system keeps being so successful at catching and ruining these men. the shame they are made to feel becomes anger.
i understand not having the patience to educate everyone you ever meet (i don’t do that), but you all on this hellsite need some nuance and realize people can be in different points of enlightenment and recovery. that dude was reaching out, don’t throw him back in the pit.
we cannot ever resolve the problem of violence against children in our society unless we give up the idea that the worst thing a child can be is disobedient.
this is what so many people are failing to understand when they whine about how youth rights advocates should stop concerning ourselves with silly little things and just worry when there’s “real abuse” happening. the two causes are one and the same. perpetuating the idea that children are morally obligated to be submissive primes them for abuse. perpetuating the idea that parents must be dominant in order to be fulfilling their responsibilities encourages them to be abusive.
stop praising kids for submissiveness. stop remarking on how “good” they are when they don’t argue or complain. stop equating “respect” with obedience. stop calling a child “well-behaved” when what you really mean is that they’re being silent and taking up as little space as possible.
instead, praise kids for goodness and moral strength that come from within. recognize them for acts of kindness and selflessness. show pride in them for helping others. encourage them when they take responsibility. support them when they stand up for themselves.
stop praising parents for dominance. stop expressing wonder at their ability to keep their children on a short leash, to silence them with a word, or to strike fear into their hearts with a look. stop looking impressed when parents gleefully expound on all the ways they’ve been “tough” on their kids.
instead, praise parents for cultivating good human relationships with their kids. tell them how great it is to see them make their kids smile. recognize them for respecting their kids, for talking to them like people. encourage them to spend time just hanging out with their kids, in moments that aren’t about teaching or correcting or giving orders. recognize the courage it takes for them to admit when they’re wrong. support them when other adults cast judgmental eyes because they’re not being disciplinarians.
making things better starts with how we talk to each other.
here’s your biweekly reminder that i love ao3 so much, not just as a platform for fanfiction and fanart but for what it represents: fans working together to create a space just for themselves. and it’s so good??? it’s fantastic??? the design is so clean and simple and there’s no ads and they politely ask for you to donate and if you say no that’s fine and a large part of their staff is volunteers and they give you updates as a little banner on top and it’s just good?? like it’s the only website i can think of that feels genuinely Good and Friendly to me and that’s wonderful.
I won’t speak for all liberals, but I’d like to see a future where it isn’t a big deal for a woman in full modesty garb to sit next to a drag queen in NYC. It’s become a bit of a sensation, but her and I were just existing. The freedom to simply be yourself in a sea of people who aren’t like you is a freedom we all deserve.
The central irony is that this isn’t some hypothetical future–it’s just present day reality. This is a picture of two ordinary people going about their normal lives despite how haters want to politicize it lmao. So the underlying message is not “future liberals want” it’s “people conservatives want to eradicate”
the underlying message is not “future liberals want” it’s “people conservatives want to eradicate”
The freedom to simply be yourself in a sea of people who aren’t like you
Always reblog.
Worth repeating: This isn’t “the future liberals want.” This is the present we already have. And conservatives want (1) to convince you it’s not happening and that (2) we need to stop it (plz ignore that they already said it’s not real).
They’re not trying to prevent a future they don’t want. They’re trying to end freedoms that already exist, a cultural habit that’s already in practice: people just going about their business near other people who are different.
So today I went to the straight pride event in Boston. I spent a lot of my time handing out water and snacks to counter protesters.
During this time counter protesters were arrested, people were pepper sprayed, a friend of mine had a police bike slammed into her throat twice.
A Trump supporter stalked someone through the crowd and grabbed someone and started a physical altercation.
A cop at one point shook his pepper spray in my face. It wasn’t until I pulled out my phone that he walked away.
At another instance a cop stood in front of me with his hand on his gun.
When the protest ended the cops pushed us away from the straight pride people using force. They used a barricade of their bikes. I was chatting with my friend collecting water when suddenly I heard screams, people running, and I felt pepper spray sprinkle my face. People were being carried away from the police to have milk poured in their eyes. At least 5 people were sprayed in that instance. Eventually someone was hit by a police motorcycle. At some point a tourist group got hit by pepper spray getting a child. A child was pepper sprayed.
All of this happened across the street from the Holocaust Memorial and along the freedom trail.
Anonymous: Thanks so much for your advice on using the word “queer!” That is what I was trying to say, that I technically count as queer but don’t generally call myself queer. I don’t get too upset if it’s my friends saying it, so I’ll probably let that go, but if it’s someone else, I’ll speak up. Thanks again and I hope you’re having a great day!
