# It takes 3,000 cows to supply the NFL with enough leather for a year's supply of footballs.
(via eatmysh0rtz)
I got this on a string cheese today!
No-Shave November and Women
The November/December issue of my school newspaper (of which I’m co-editor) came out today, and I’m kind of upset about one of the articles (yes, I don’t always have time to read everything that’s published before the issue comes out, call me a bad person if you want).
I’d like to start this rant with a disclaimer that I am not, nor have I ever really been a member of the female gender, so it’s possible that my perspective on this is all wrong (ladies and female-leaning folk in the audience, feel free to call me out if I’m being presumptuous). But as a transgender male, I am someone whose life has been detrimentally affected by gender stereotypes, especially those that pertain to women, so I think I do have some right to talk about this.
The article is about No-Shave November and a response to some people at my school who were lightheartedly promoting the event and encouraging girls to participate as well and grow out their body hair while their male-bodied counterparts grew out their facial hair. Putting it very simplistically for the sake of conserving my own time, her response was, “We don’t WANT to be hairy, and nobody should pressure us to be that way!”
Of course, if women want to shave their legs and such, that’s their prerogative. That’s perfectly fine. I am in no way disputing a woman’s right to do whatever she wants with her body. I am all for that.
But the idea that people were pressuring these (mostly quite) feminine, (mostly) heterosexual girls not to shave is ludicrous. The idea that this girl missed is that the concept of a woman choosing not to shave would be to overcome a particular way of thinking that our patriarchal society has thrust upon her since she was a little girl: that to be a desirable individual, you must be pretty and attractive to heterosexual males, and to do that, you must be smooth and shiny and perfect at all times.
But here is the part of the article that made me the most upset: “I’m simply saying it’s an unavoidable truth that desisting from shaving is seen as a plus for a man’s masculinity, but as the downfall of a woman’s femininity.”
To that, I say fuck that idea of femininity! The downfall? Really? Is one’s femininity so fragile that being a little stubbly on occasion would shatter it? What is she really saying here? I think what she’s saying is that the concept of being a desirable woman is dependent on certain ideas of how a woman should look. Ladies and gentlemen and folks of other genders, I do not buy that bullshit and I do not condone that way of thinking.
I know the girl who wrote this article by reputation, and I know she is smart and clever, as well as articulate. I know she is smart enough to dig deeper into this issue. She didn’t think that maybe not all girls want what she and her friends want, that not all girls have the same ideas of gender and beauty. The article was totally closed-minded and seemed to be trying to speak for all girls at my school. That’s laughable, really. Yes, most girls at my school are straight, cisgender and feminine. But aren’t all of them victims of our misogynistic, heterosexist society, even if they refuse to admit it?
Personally, body hair on a woman does not bother me. Not that I feel like I have a right to judge a woman for how she tends to her own body just because I’m a guy, of course. But for the record here, I don’t think that body hair on a woman means that she isn’t beautiful. I mean, look at Amanda Palmer! She’s fucking gorgeous, and she doesn’t shave her underarms. But who gives a shit, really? She’s awesome no matter what she does with her body. It’s her body, it’s her choice, and screw you if you feel like you have the right to tell her otherwise. Young girls today should be looking up to her, not Miley Cyrus or whoever. Being hairless and flawless and having skin like porcelain and being the perfect picture of femininity that all the magazines want all these girls to be is really not what girls and women should be taught to strive for.
To be entirely frank and more than a little bit crass with my language here, I fucking hate what our society does to women and their self-esteem. Women, girls, ladies, female-identifying folk of all kinds: You don’t have to wear tons of makeup and weigh 90 pounds to be beautiful, you don’t have to be hairless to be desirable, you don’t have to fucking do what they want you to do. Fuck them. Fuck anyone who tells you you’re not pretty because of this and that and whatever the fuck else they say. You show them what pretty looks like.
They can shove their idea of beauty right up their tight, misogynistic assholes, because I’m not having any of it.
The “Best Feminist Ever” award for today goes to you. ^_^
Wtf?
I don’t get cold. I’m hot blooded. (Check it and see.)
So I repeat. Wtf?
…On some days nothing would go right, and then it would be: ‘All right, then, I know what you want. You’ve been asking for it the whole morning. Come along, you useless little slacker. Come into the study.’ And then whack, whack, whack, and back one would come, red-wealed and smarting…to settle down to work again. This did not happen very often, but I do remember, more than once, being led out of the room in the middle of a Latin sentence, receiving a beating and then going straight ahead with the same sentence, just like that. It is a mistake to think such methods do not work. They work very well for their special purpose. Indeed, I doubt whether classical education ever has been or can be successfully carried on without corporal punishment.
—
“Such, Such Were the Joys,” by George Orwell.
So I guess this is why I can’t retain any Latin?
(via lostintransmission)
Hahaha
John needs to bring the pain!
