How was your first spring weekend? Was it the most beautiful thing since your last spring weekend? I hope you’re excited about your outfit today because as I type this I’m wearing a just-ripped robe (it caught on the banister on my way down the stairs to schedule this post) and I am SUPER SERIOUS about wearing something cute after this.
Queer as in F*ck You
+ Oh it’s the The Geography of Queer Folks!
Doll Parts
+ This is something you can read and then have thoughts and/or feelings about: In College and Hiding From Scary Ideas by Judith Shulevitz.
+ Thor is Selling More Comics as a Woman.
+ Monica Lewinsky‘s TED Talk on The Price of Shame.
+ 16 Powerful Quotes About What It Means to Be a Woman, in case you need something to put on a post-it above your computer today.
+ Robyn Launches Festival Promoting Women in Technology!
+ “The Bold and the Beautiful” Reveals Transgender Character and that is an auto-play video.
+ Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg Has Released a New Feminist Take on the Passover Narrative so I hope you will enjoy that.
Saw This, Thought of You
+ Anna Doogan‘s essay, LOST, on Mutha is a nice gut punch for a Monday.
I went back to the tiny square table, past the mom who had brought homemade sandwiches for her four kids, wrapped tightly in waxed paper. I could never get it together to pack lunches. Instead, I always ended up flustered and succumbing to overpriced paninis and fruit plates.
The crackers were still sitting there. Grapes mostly eaten, but a few scattered across the napkin. My son’s chair, however, was empty.
+ The Science of Why Stepping on Legos Makes You Want to Die by Sonali Kohli (h/t Taylor Hatmaker xox).
+ A thing I will never grow tired of discussing or considering or hoping for or already pretending like: Why Can’t Link Be a Girl?
+ Melissa Dahl on Gretchen Rubin‘s latest episode of the “Happiness” podcast on how Keeping a One-Sentence Journal Could Make You Happier.
+ Four words: National Park Lego Sets.
+ INTERESTING. Our Warm Embrace of Those Allergic to Peanuts. “The rise in peanut allergies has inspired something rarely seen in the contentious world of food choice: cooperation.”
And Finally
What Are the World’s Tiniest Animals pray tell??!
What is Link is a girl and like many a butch woman everyone just assumes he’s a boy?
Gosh, so many links to comment about.
+ Geography of Queer folks: Yes, thank you. I will use this as my what city will you find Nikki next?
+ 16 powerful quotes about what it means to be a woman: Yes, I needed this too. I’m putting them up all over the place. It’s post-it quote party.
+ I love Robyn
+ The Notorious RBG, also love.
+ Link as Female – Okay, I know this video explains that there have been other female main characters in video games, but can game developers like not make them hyper-sexualized, like could that be a thing? I would love to see a female link, that would be a nice thing. I read an article from someone opposing this because when “He’s” playing a video game he wants to get submerged into the game and he couldn’t do that with a female character. Hey buddy, I have been doing that for the past 20 some years. I think you’ll be okay. Really, you can do it.
I was hoping it was going to be a trans woman playing the character, but I guess not. Also, CBS we are not born male or female, we are born a baby and then assigned a gender. Please get it right.
oh hey i’m a college instructor and grad student who had someone in her department post that Shulevitz article so i wrote a response to it because it is bullshit:
https://lamismamuchachasalvaje.wordpress.com/2015/03/23/trigger-warnings-academia-and-the-fallacy-of-hiding-from-scary-ideas/
That article is SUCH BULLSHIT and your response is ON POINT.
thank you for this link jessica!!
Thanks, Jessica. That article was complete bullshit, and as someone in academia (also a PhD in anthropology) most of my anger is echoed in your response.
Thanks for your response because it’s great to that awful article that was just so willfully ignorant about what safe spaces are and what they do.
aww y’all thanks for the responses! paper0flowers, fellow anthropologists unite :)
Super article. Side note: Have you also seen Neil Gaimen trying to say why it’s okay to call his new collection Trigger Warning because “trigger warning” is not a literary thing?
That peanut allergy link is interesting. I wish people took the same attitude when it comes to perfume allergies. Maybe you have to be a kid for people to care?
I was once working at a summer camp when a girl showed up a day late. She had registered for another camp and when she got there, she realized that they used peanut shells on the floor of the barn, and there were peanuts tracked all over the camp. She was basically allergic to the entire place. She showed up at our camp a day late because we were the only ones willing to accommodate her allergy…I kept thinking how the hell does that even happen? How would people not be accommodating to other people, but especially a kid?
That is baffling and so sad. This shouldn’t happen! Society has a terrible relationship with disabilities and accommodation. This should be a simple fix and a no brainer, but people would rather be selfish.
I think the biggest issue with perfume allergies is that a lot of people are just uninformed regarding how prevalent these are? Or, maybe people are also just jerks. :/
Yes, there definitely needs to be more education on their prevalence. People often assume fragrance is limited to perfume/cologne out of a bottle, but perfume is added to 99.9% of products, personal care, laundry, cleaning products, air fresheners, etc. There really is no escaping it which makes life incredibly difficult if perfume makes you sick. My wellness depends entirely on the actions of strangers, whether I make it to an event or am excluded because of someone who cares more about their scents.
I work in the perfume industry(I sell perfumes for a living) and I can honestly tell you we are uninformed when it comes to perfume allergies. All I know not to spray on the paper when they say it makes them feel sick. Though I’ve never seen a person actually have their allergies flair on store, minus the few who say they got a headache from smelling to many scents.
Trans girl Link though ♥
Re: the peanut article: I wish people would just respect other people’s food restrictions altogether; even in instances where cross-contamination is not an issue, I feel like people are so quick to roll their eyes/dismiss food restrictions (regardless of whether the restriction is due to allergy or personal convictions or otherwise), and it’s really frustrating that people want you to justify your food choices before they feel they can accept those choices as valid.
a-freaking-men to this.
I can’t eat soybeans. No soy sauce, no tofu, no processed shit with soy preservatives. I get really sick, sometimes I get hives in my mouth, I stay feeling shitty for days, but people still don’t believe me. I’ve turned down offers to go to Hibatchi restaurants because I don’t want to eat food covered in soy sauce, and my friends will say “just eat a little bit.”
I guess I have to have a full on allergic reaction for people to believe I’m not making it up for attention.
Seriously!! What is wrong with people. ugh. So sorry your friends are like that.
If someone told me I couldn’t eat soy, gluten, peanut butter ever again because it made them ill (in whatever degree) I would give it up for them. Hell I don’t even have to like the person. It’s just the right thing to do. And I am a peanut butter addict. I would mourn and move the hell on because there are millions of other joys in life than eating 1 food.
Monica Lewinsky’s Ted Talk on The Price of Shame is powerful and transformative. Enough with the shaming culture. Compassion and empathy save lives and they are priceless.
There was so much to read here! I love the idea of keeping a 1-sentence diary everyday, totally gonna start doing that.
And the peanut allergy one was interesting. My younger brother had pretty severe food allergies growing up (peanuts included), and my parents were always careful to read food labels and check ingredients at restaurants, but we definitely didn’t ban peanuts/peanut butter from our house. The rest of the family ate it all the time (I made a PB&J every day for lunch), we just told him not to eat it. I guess there’s a wide range of how severe allergies can get, and we’re lucky he wasn’t one of those kids who could get sick from peanut dust in the air.
Two lego posts? Awesome! Definitely just made a “lego ideas” account and voted for the national parks set. Those little lego salmon jumping upriver! That flowering lego cactus! I didn’t even know a voting system for new lego ideas existed! Now I can go to sleep knowing that I might have played a small part in bettering the lives of outdoor-loving, lego-building children.
I don’t really care if Link is made into a girl or not. Zelda is a fully-fleshed out girl who is already there. I want to play a game that is completely focused on her, where she is the protaganist. Not as a secondary character or an NPC. In my opinion, Zelda should have a game or two before Link gets turned into a girl. LoZ has been changing over time in regards to Zelda so that just seems like the next step in the next few years.
SOLID POINT.
Totally agree. Whenever i have played LoZ games i have imagined link as either being agender or female, but what i really want is an expansion of Zelda’s Sheik persona. She needs to stop being a damsel in distress and save herself for once. Now that would be a badass game i’d love to play.
Meh about Link being a girl, but anyone else wanna party hard with the hottie bartender/resistance leader Telma in Twilight Princess?
Re: allergies – as someone who works in the (fast?) food industry, I don’t understand people who don’t say they have a nut/egg/anything allergy upfront. It’s the WORST when we get halfway or even completely done with their food when they go “oh, by the way, I have a nut allergy” like?? did you forget about your potential death in my store? thanks for wasting the product and time, legit one of my biggest pet peeves