Imagine you live in a world very similar to yours, except that there is a war that has been going on for centuries. The borders need to be protected against the Orks. As tradition dictates, this hard but honorable work is the realm of men and the epitome of manhood, and it has been like that for as long as society can remember. Recently, things have changed a little. The military service has become less dangerous, and almost no men die in service anymore. It has also become voluntary. Men are not automatically joining the army as soon as they come of age. They can delay it. As a result, the numbers of men studying at university has risen dramatically; universities used to be the realm of women until about 50 years ago. Still, most men eventually join the army, often giving up their ambitions, and men who don’t are viewed suspiciously. If you sign up for service, this changes your life forever. You cannot un-sign. You need to spend about 20 years in the army, and while the first five years are the most intense, it also requires hard work afterwards. Not surprisingly, this compromises the ability of men to pursue careers. They usually have to take at least a year off at the beginning of service, often more, to concentrate on learning how to fight. They might work part-time later, but this, some say, diminishes the quality of their service. Studies have proven that this is not really the case, but a powerful prejudice survives. Women, therefore, still dominate the professional world and make careers, as it has been for centuries. ‘Women are better suited for careers, this is clear from their brain chemistry’, many say. ‘On the other hand, men are made for battle. This has been like this since the dawn of time. It is better to accept this fundamental fact of life.’
What would happen, for instance, if suddenly, magically, men could menstruate and women could not?
The answer is clear - menstruation would become an enviable, boast-worthy, masculine event:
Men would brag about how long and how much.
Boys would mark the onset of menses, that longed-for proof of manhood, with religious ritual and stag parties.
Congress would fund a National Institute of Dysmenorrhea to help stamp out monthly discomforts.
Sanitary supplies would be federally funded and free. (Of course, some men would still pay for the prestige of commercial brands such as John Wayne Tampons, Muhammad Ali’s Rope-a-dope Pads, Joe Namath Jock Shields - “For Those Light Bachelor Days,” and Robert “Baretta” Blake Maxi-Pads.)
Military men, right-wing politicians, and religious fundamentalists would cite menstruation (“men-struation”) as proof that only men could serve in the Army (“you have to give blood to take blood”), occupy political office (“can women be aggressive without that steadfast cycle governed by the planet Mars?”), be priest and ministers (“how could a woman give her blood for our sins?”) or rabbis (“without the monthly loss of impurities, women remain unclean”).
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Gloria Steinem (via waityouguys)
ohhhh becca i’m loving your blog today.
(via breakplans)
This is a great fucking post.
(via amodollface)
Just talking to my fiancee about this and we do agree that there should be help towards menstrual supplies or at least a cap on their prices, but logistically to provide free supplies to everyone who needs them would either result in a serious tax rise or taking funds from other medical areas
Just playing devil’s advocate
(via darth-sebious)
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dovah-cunt:
You people are not pro-life. Life entails enjoyment, satisfaction, well-being, fulfillment - you don’t care about any of those things. Specifically, you don’t care about women attempting to attain those things via an informed choice to receive a legal medical procedure that can be labeled as…
Men’s indifference to learning about contraception and to taking any responsibility for it is a theme that emerges from many reports of projects that have attempted, and failed, to reach and educate men. One of the most successful programs of contraception education for men, a Planned Parenthood project in Chicago, abandoned its attempts to reach men over the age of twenty-five when it was found that these men simply would not participate, even when offered beer, sandwiches, free condoms—and “stag” movies.10 Instead, the project targeted a younger group, and as part of its research the project conducted a survey of over a thousand men aged fifteen to nineteen:
• These young men were asked whether they agreed with the statement “It’s okay to tell a girl you love her so that you can have sex with her.” Seven out of ten agreed that it’s okay.
• They were asked whether they agreed with the statement “A guy should use birth control whenever possible.” Eight out of ten disagreed and said a guy should not.
• And when asked, “If I got a girl pregnant, I would want her to have an abortion,” nearly nine out of ten said no, they would not want her to have an abortion.
These teenage men agreed: Deception to obtain coital access is okay; male irresponsibility in contraception is okay; but abortion is not okay—“because it’s wrong.”
Largely because of attitudes such as these, one million teenage women—one tenth of all teenage women—become pregnant each year, and two thirds of their pregnancies are not wanted.
bitchesguidetoetiquette:
dorkasaurusrexatron:
File under: this would be funny if it weren’t so fucking sad.
Michigan House Republicans prohibited state Rep. Lisa Brown (D) from speaking on the floor after she ended a speech against a bill restricting abortions by referencing her female anatomy, the Detroit News reports.
Said Brown: “Finally, Mr. Speaker, I’m flattered that you’re all so interested in my vagina, but ‘no’ means ‘no.’”
Republicans said Brown was “offensive” and wouldn’t allow her to voice her opinion on a school employee retirement bill.
Responded Brown: “If I can’t say the word vagina, why are we legislating vaginas? What language should I use?”
So…. This happened.
The internet is responding by tweeting “VAGINA” or “VAGINAS” or any variation thereof to the Michigan House Republicans twitter @MIHouseRepublicans
kateordie:
Sometimes I have the time and patience to get from an idea to a fully fleshed-out, penciled, inked and coloured comic.
Sometimes I don’t.
A woman’s worst nightmare? That’s pretty easy. Novelist Margaret Atwood writes that when she asked a male friend why men feel threatened by women, he answered, “They are afraid women will laugh at them.” When she asked a group of women why they feel threatened by men, they said, “We’re afraid of being killed.
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http://www.pbs.org/kued/nosafeplace/articles/nightmare.html (via alullaby)
That sums it up
(via erikawithac)
This reminds me of a discussion we had in school, and one girl was talking about living in fear of her safety because she is a girl, and this guy chimed in and was all “It’s hard for guys too! I’m so awkward around girls! It’s embarrassing!” Yeah, not the same thing, exactly?
(via tulletulle)
Wow.
(via kittencoaster)
This reminds me of an article about online (heterosexual) dating that I read a while ago. It listed men’s and women’s worst fears about meeting someone from online. The highest ranked fear that men had was that their date would be fat, whereas the highest ranked fear that women had was that their date would turn out to be violent and kill them.
I think that says a lot.
(via kaitg)
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For many Western men — and women, for that matter — it is beyond unacceptable for a woman to have hairy legs or armpits: it is inconceivable. The perception that ‘normal’ women should be virtually hair-free is a young one: it began in the 1920s when the struggling Wilkinson Sword Company decided to boost its sales by targeting women, with an advertising campaign that claimed female underarm hair was unfeminine and unhygienic. (Of course, if the latter were true it would have equally applied to both genders, but then again advertising campaigns are notorious for preying on women’s insecurities.) This kind of attitude in advertising and the media is pretty one-sided: the target is almost exclusively women who are effectively told they are too ugly unless they buy into certain products or services, ranging from hair removal to diets to tanning creams and so on.
We stopped freaking out about the “Oh my god, women want to wear pants!” thing a really long time ago. Women wandered into the traditionally masculine realms of self-expression and ambition and now it’s just normal.
Not so with masculinity. It is still as rigid and well defended as ever, despite a few David Bowies or Johnny Depps in the mix. Just look at last year’s total freaking meltdown about a J. Crew catalog that carried a photo of a woman painting her young son’s toenails. Just look at the way the more delicate boys of the world are bullied by their classmates and accused of being gay. Just look at the gender imbalance in the diagnosis of Gender Identity Disorder in children, with gender disordered pre-pubescent boys outnumbering girls at a rate of up to 30 to 1. When a girl is boyish, or even claims she’d rather be a boy, it’s cute. She’s a tomboy. When a boy is girlish, wanting to wear dresses or try on some makeup, it’s a mental disorder and needs an immediate medical intervention.
abaldwin360:
Do they really believe that abortion is murder? (a handy dandy chart, courtesy of Alas, A Blog!)
Almost none of their policies make sense if they really see no difference between the death of a fetus and the death of a four-year-old. However, nearly all their policies make sense if they’re seeking to make sure that women who have sex “face the consequences.” are punished. After years of seeing this pattern repeated again and again, it’s difficult to take them at their word.
acampadabcn:
2012_05_12_rieko-19 (por acampadabcnfoto Fotomovimiento15M)
It’s been a year.
The unemployment rate in Spain is still one of the highest, at 24.44% this month. There is talk of raising universities’ tuition fees a 60% to gather money for scholarships that will be harder to get. At the same time, banks are helped quickly with everybody’s money and corrupt politicians are often freed easily. Community kitchens have never been this full and the lists for surgery procedures are endless. Any political protest is quickly called “terrorism” and the forces of order go berserk in every demonstration.
So… yeah… great time to be young, I guess.
