Frank and Straightforward

$scienceing: mybluedecember: princess-munchkin: How the fuck does Bill Nye expect this to happen? What do you want to do, force women to enroll in science courses, regardless of whether or not they want to do it? Just for the sake of having “enough” women? Why the fuck do these fractions matter so much? It’s not like people are holding guns to our head and threatening to kill us if we become interested in science. Maybe, just maybe, a lot of us DON’T FUCKING WANT to be scientists. Is that a crime? Hi there, princess-munchkin. Female engineering student here. Bill Nye is not saying that you HAVE to be a scientist, and you are right that no one is holding a gun to my head because I am interested in science, but let me tell you some of the struggles of being a woman in the STEM fields. 1) Because I am a woman, I am not expected these fields. I first fully realized this when I was in high school, on my robotics team. See, although my robotics team was about 50% female, most of the women were part of the “business administration” side of things: finance, marketting, PR, membership, etc. Was this a problem? Absolutely not. But I was there to be an engineer, and specifically, to be the robot programmer. This was met with a lot of hesitation at first from some of the other students (all of whom happened to be male. This is not necessarily a bad thing.) You see, all of the robot programmers before me were guys. Computer programming is just a thing that guys do, or so they thought. Even after I had proved myself to the mentors on the team, many of the students still underestimated my abilities. There were rumors going around that I wouldn’t have been able to program the robot at all if the lead software mentor wasn’t there to help me. This was just flat-out false, but it wasn’t until I won an award for the team that the other students actually saw my merit. 2) There is not a lot of encouragement for women to go into these fields. I first noticed this when I was in elementary school. I was always interested in math, science, you name it, but many of my teachers and family members pushed that to the side for a long time. When I asked for legos for christmas, I would get ballet slippers. In fact, for a long time, I was training to be a professional dancer. I loved to dance. I loved math more, but no one seemed to notice that about me. It wasn’t until I had a long conversation with one particular teacher in high school that I decided to look into engineering. I had never even considered it as an option before, because no one decided to encourage me to pursue my interest in science. If it hadn’t been for that teacher, I would probably not be at the school I am at right now. 3) For a long time, Engineering/Science/Math WAS a “boys only” club. Let me tell you when some of the top technical schools and societies started letting women in: RPI, The oldest tech school in the country, founded in 1824. Started admitting women in 1942 to “replace men called to war.” Campus housing for women wasn’t constructed until 1966. Tau Beta Pi, the Engineering Honors Society - Founded in 1885. Started admitting women in 1968. Caltech - Currently rated #3 in undergraduate engineering. Founded in 1891. Started admitting women in 1970. Georgia Tech - Currently rated #5 in undergraduate engineering. Founded in 1885. Started admitting women in 1952. Do you see the implications of this? Engineering has been a part of our society since around the late 1800s (in the case of RPI, since the 1820s), but women weren’t even allowed in for the most part until the 1950s, regardless of their merit. 4) Because of the fact that it was a “boys only” club for such a long time, there are not a lot of women engineers and scientists to look up to. When you’re reading your physics, chemistry, and math text books, the majority of those theories were came up with by men. It is true that much of our history was written by White Men, but this does not mean that the fact that there are few women scientists to look up does not matter. So, as you can hopefully see, princess-munckin, or anyone else that shares the opinions of princess-munchkin, Bill Nye was not arguing that women that are not interested in STEM should go into those fields anyway. But he IS arguing against all of the systematic barriers set up against women who ARE interested in engineering and science. There are several women out there who are just as good as the boys at math and science, but will never pursue their interests because it just doesn’t seem like an option. That was me for a long time. I am super grateful for the fact that I fought against that, and that I ended up where I am. if you don’t like science, fine. Don’t be a scientist. But if one day you have a daughter and she shows interest in being a scientist, PLEASE encourage her. Because Bill Nye is right, there needs to be more women scientists in the world. A+ comment$

scienceing:

mybluedecember:

princess-munchkin:

How the fuck does Bill Nye expect this to happen? What do you want to do, force women to enroll in science courses, regardless of whether or not they want to do it? Just for the sake of having “enough” women? Why the fuck do these fractions matter so much? It’s not like people are holding guns to our head and threatening to kill us if we become interested in science.

Maybe, just maybe, a lot of us DON’T FUCKING WANT to be scientists. Is that a crime?

Hi there, princess-munchkin. Female engineering student here.

Bill Nye is not saying that you HAVE to be a scientist, and you are right that no one is holding a gun to my head because I am interested in science, but let me tell you some of the struggles of being a woman in the STEM fields.

1) Because I am a woman, I am not expected these fields. I first fully realized this when I was in high school, on my robotics team. See, although my robotics team was about 50% female, most of the women were part of the “business administration” side of things: finance, marketting, PR, membership, etc. Was this a problem? Absolutely not. But I was there to be an engineer, and specifically, to be the robot programmer. This was met with a lot of hesitation at first from some of the other students (all of whom happened to be male. This is not necessarily a bad thing.) You see, all of the robot programmers before me were guys. Computer programming is just a thing that guys do, or so they thought. Even after I had proved myself to the mentors on the team, many of the students still underestimated my abilities. There were rumors going around that I wouldn’t have been able to program the robot at all if the lead software mentor wasn’t there to help me. This was just flat-out false, but it wasn’t until I won an award for the team that the other students actually saw my merit.

2) There is not a lot of encouragement for women to go into these fields. I first noticed this when I was in elementary school. I was always interested in math, science, you name it, but many of my teachers and family members pushed that to the side for a long time. When I asked for legos for christmas, I would get ballet slippers. In fact, for a long time, I was training to be a professional dancer. I loved to dance. I loved math more, but no one seemed to notice that about me. It wasn’t until I had a long conversation with one particular teacher in high school that I decided to look into engineering. I had never even considered it as an option before, because no one decided to encourage me to pursue my interest in science. If it hadn’t been for that teacher, I would probably not be at the school I am at right now.

3) For a long time, Engineering/Science/Math WAS a “boys only” club. Let me tell you when some of the top technical schools and societies started letting women in:

RPI, The oldest tech school in the country, founded in 1824. Started admitting women in 1942 to “replace men called to war.” Campus housing for women wasn’t constructed until 1966.

Tau Beta Pi, the Engineering Honors Society - Founded in 1885. Started admitting women in 1968.

Caltech - Currently rated #3 in undergraduate engineering. Founded in 1891. Started admitting women in 1970.

Georgia Tech - Currently rated #5 in undergraduate engineering. Founded in 1885. Started admitting women in 1952.

Do you see the implications of this? Engineering has been a part of our society since around the late 1800s (in the case of RPI, since the 1820s), but women weren’t even allowed in for the most part until the 1950s, regardless of their merit.

4) Because of the fact that it was a “boys only” club for such a long time, there are not a lot of women engineers and scientists to look up to. When you’re reading your physics, chemistry, and math text books, the majority of those theories were came up with by men. It is true that much of our history was written by White Men, but this does not mean that the fact that there are few women scientists to look up does not matter.

So, as you can hopefully see, princess-munckin, or anyone else that shares the opinions of princess-munchkin, Bill Nye was not arguing that women that are not interested in STEM should go into those fields anyway. But he IS arguing against all of the systematic barriers set up against women who ARE interested in engineering and science. There are several women out there who are just as good as the boys at math and science, but will never pursue their interests because it just doesn’t seem like an option. That was me for a long time. I am super grateful for the fact that I fought against that, and that I ended up where I am.

if you don’t like science, fine. Don’t be a scientist. But if one day you have a daughter and she shows interest in being a scientist, PLEASE encourage her. Because Bill Nye is right, there needs to be more women scientists in the world.

A+ comment

socalfeminist:

Pretty much what I was thinking when a guest said checking into my hotel said, “I’m not racist but, that Day’s In down the street have Indian owners. Indians, you know, have prostitution rings and I didn’t want to put my family in that kind of danger.”

Yeah buddy that wasn’t fucking racism AT ALL.

(Source: tastefullyoffensive)

Fitch the Homeless is a Terrible Idea / Homeless People are not Your Gimmick

feministdisney:

iamayoungfeminist:

If you haven’t heard, some people are suggesting that in response to the CEO of Abercrombie and Fitch explaining that he won’t make clothes for uncool people (aka fat women) we should start giving A&F clothes to the homeless. No really. People are really suggesting that.

Um

“Hey, A&F look at who is wearing your clothes now! Homeless people! Aka the worst of the worst! Aka the non-coolest people ever! Got you now!”

1. Homeless people ARE PEOPLE and should be treated LIKE PEOPLE not props.
2. YOU ARE STILL GIVING MONEY TO THE COMPANY. Yeah, like maybe indirectly indirectly if you are buying your clothes from Goodwill or donating things you already have. But how about we just stop supporting this fucked up company all together.
3. Just read this tweet, people. Just read it.

Okay, I can forgive one white dude for thinking this is a good idea (I GUESS) but SO MANY social justice advocates keep reposting the idea like it’s some genius form of social protest. IT’S NOT. It’s exploiting and dehumanizing and HOW EVEN ONE PERSON READ THIS AND THINK “yeah, that’s a swell idea” IS BEYOND ME.

I was going to write up a post, but then I saw this :) since I actually already wrote up my points, I’ll add them here to go along with what she pointed out.

Homeless people are not your tool to use, they are not your gimmick. They’re not your billboard. Issues I see with implementation:

it relies on everyone understanding that homeless people are “less than”. Whether or not we believe it ourselves, we feed into this mentality by agreeing that a big F U to a company is to have homeless people wear their brand. Woohoo, they’ll make the brand dirty by publicly wearing it, take that! yeah! It treats them as a joke punchline.

On the actual level of passing out these shirts, it’s manipulative. They are poor, they have less choice than you (probably) or I as to whether or not they accept a handout, because they often need them to survive. Whether or not they agree with the message of your campaign, they have to agree with it in order to receive charity. Or did this guy go around with an extra bag of not-Abercrombie shirts in order to give people a real choice? If your charity is only given out to people who agree with your corporate tactics, how charitable are you? Why are we all encouraged to choose to boycott Abercrombie, but it’s assumed acceptable that all the homeless people should, instead, wear the clothing brand we detest? Is it because we already consider homeless people “branded”?

Again on actual level, one of the problems that started the outcry is that Abercrombie refuses to make clothes for larger people. How does that work out when you’re doling out the shirts? Skip over the larger homeless people saying, “Sorry, you’re too large for what we had in mind for this corporate takedown, no charity for you?” Or again, are you bringing extra shirts along? Is it okay to exclude fat women so long as they’re homeless this time??

A lot of people will inevitably argue that it’s wrong to deny homeless people a shirt no matter what the circumstances. But this is the exact attitude that often maligns homeless people unnecessary and allows others to use charity for their own promotion regardless of how tastelessly it is done. “They should take anything we give them, and be grateful” is the social adage. They’re not dogs, they’re people in unfortunate circumstances. People with thoughts, feelings, and a desire for choices.

Giving out ten or so poorly manufactured tshirts is nothing, honestly. Most homeless people do not need tshirts as much as they need shelter, food, and proper medical care. There is a reason homeless people do not often own many outfits… they have few places to store them. Without proper medical care, they might not be capable of cleaning them, since mentally and physically disabled people are disproportionately homeless… and these are the people you are taking advantage of and using for your minute of fame.

This is not something we should feel good about…

This fixation with clothes… Sometimes what people might need are these: http://www.portlandrescuemission.org/get-involved/pack-a-care-kit/

A general reminder to everyone including myself: it’s important to think about and critique everything; especially your own movement and brand of activism before deciding it’s a good thing.

feministdisney:

sanityscraps:

thegoddamazon:

maymay:

“Repeat Rape: How do they get away with it?”, Part 1 of 2. (link to Part 2)

Sources:

College Men: Repeat Rape and Multiple Offending Among Undetected Rapists,Lisak and Miller, 2002 [PDF, 12 pages]

Navy Men: Lisak and Miller’s results were essentially duplicated in an even larger study (2,925 men): Reports of Rape Reperpetration by Newly Enlisted Male Navy Personnel, McWhorter, 2009 [PDF, 16 pages]

By dark-side-of-the-room, who writes:

These infogifs are provided RIGHTS-FREE for noncommercial purposes. Repost them anywhere. In fact, repost them EVERYWHERE. No need to credit. Link to the L&M study if possible.

Knowledge is a seed; sow it.

Pretty much.

And that’s not all. 43% of college men will admit to using “coercive behavior” to have sex with a woman… which of course is also rape.

Rape culture trains sociopaths.

this is good to have. I always want these studies and I always have trouble finding them via google.

Whoa indeed

stfuprolifers:

Props to the people in the abortion and pro-life tags going on about how pro-choicers and people who get abortions don’t get to celebrate Mother’s Day. Ya know, because these people definitely don’t have mothers of their own or already have children or even had wanted pregnancies but were lost to emergency, life-saving abortions. You’re all class acts.

Fuck that no. On the contrary I get to celebrate Mother’s day because I might have been unexpected but was a wanted pregnancy nonetheless.

“
It’s okay to say “no” if you change your mind. We allow you to change majors and change direction and change clothes, with no repercussions other than possibly wasted time. If his touch is too forceful and his breath too hot and his weight too much, you are not bound to your previous decision. If your mimd is screaming and your nerves are sizzling, they are as valid then and now as they were five minutes ago, when you were saying yes.

It’s okay to say “no” if you were flirting. Batted eyelashes and sly smirks and witty words do not form a map to your uncharted territory. Your playfulness does not relieve them of their self control. Your allure does not diminish their responsibility to be respectful. The only path you led them on is that of the unknown, of which the rules of the road still apply.

It’s okay to say “no” if you’re unsure.

It’s okay to say “no” if you’re embarrassed.

It’s okay to say “no” when they tell you it isn’t okay to say “no.”
”

When It’s Ok To Say “No” (via id0l—ofr0ses)

“There is a huge amount of freedom that comes to you when you take nothing personally.”

Don Miguel Ruiz (via wendesgray)

They’re usually not a crappy person exclusively to you since in most cases they don’t know you well enough; or even care to for that matter.

And if someone is purposely trying to hurt you, then you definitely won’t need any more that kind of emotional baggage.

“The Four Agreements”: One of those silly philosophy books you should consider reading and thinking about. Religious undertones aside, it actually got me through a bit in life.

(Source: v1llain)

lipsredasroses:

whoistorule:

i hate unpaid internships so fucking much

unpaid internships exploit college graduates, most of whom have exorbitant student loans, into working 30-40 hours weeks for no pay

at which time they start owing massive amounts of interest on their student loans

they often don’t have time to search for other jobs

it’s really only practical for wealthy people whocan afford to work without pay to make their resumes look prettier and network (again without pay) to get a job

under the vain hopes that they’ll get hired at that company after their internship is up

which frequently does not happen

or to bolster their resume so some other company will hire them

and if they do get a job at that company the company now doesn’t have to pay for their job training, which they’re legally allowed to do

all of which is unconstitutional because it’s fucking illegal to make someone work for no pay

it’s in the thirteenth amendment

so why is my generation living at home?

because no one will fucking hire and pay them a living wage that will cover rent and food and their student loans, that they have to pay because in order to get that unpaid internship in the first place they have to attend a university that is costing them between $35,000-$60,000 a year

and the debt for those loans is the only type of debt in this country that is unforgivable

that’s right even if you declare bankruptcy and have nothing left, you will still owe your student loans

so in conclusion

fuck everything in this broken system

and also pay your employees

thank

My biggest fear is that I wont be able to pay back my student loans. My student loans are 1/3 of most of my friends and I’m still terrified that I’ll live at home with my parents throughout a good chunk of my 20s because I wont be able to pay back those student loans and find a place to live. When I found out student loans are the only dept that you are stuck with, even after you declare bankruptcy, scared me even more.

Essentially why most people won’t major in stuff they like, especially in the liberal arts.

Why does anyone think most of us would voluntarily live with our parents?

“Okay, guy, so why do you feel like you want/need/deserve to settle down with a “pure” woman? I’m genuinely listening. “Oh, it’s because sluts are gross.” Too vague. Do better. “Well, their vaginas are real stretched out and big.” No. “Ummmmm, they probably have a bunch of diseases?” Easy fix! Setting aside the fact that plenty of women contract STIs from monogamous partners or during “safe sex,” it sounds like your real problem here is with illness, not sex. So I assume you’d be fine dating a promiscuous woman who practiced safe sex and happened to be STI-free? “No, because I want a girl who’s traditional and family-oriented.” Having sex doesn’t mean you don’t want to have a family. It just means that you want to have sex. “Yeah, but a slut is more likely to cheat on me.” Really? Then why do couples in the Bible Belt have such a high divorce rate? “The devil, I guess?” NOPE. “I just can’t stand the thought of her getting fucked by all those other guys.” So you’re about to have sex with a woman you’re attracted to, you really want to have sex with her, but all you can think about is her getting pounded by tons and tons of dicks? That sounds like an entirely different issue. “No! I just mean that I struggle with the same powerlessness and insecurity that all human beings do, so as a coping mechanism I take advantage of our culture’s patriarchal power structure and exorcize my feelings of worthlessness by perpetuating shame-based proprietary attitudes over women’s bodies. Basically I’m obsessed with controlling women’s lives because I can’t control my own.” Oh, honey. I know.”

Female ‘Purity’ Is Bullshit

Hitting the bullshit nail right on its head.

Feminists don’t hate men, we hate the bullshit power structure that exists that allows men to take advantage of women rather than dealing with their emotions.

(via teacheremmalee)

Ladies and especially gentlemen, here you have the objectification of women at its finest.

Translated into: I want you pure and untouched so I can be the only one to have you and to throw you out when I’m done. But you should have a bit of experience so that you’d be open to whatever shitty sexual fantasy goes on through my motherfucking head.