Come, benthic brethren!

Marlow Trottie was killed on June 8th 2026. She was found dead, alone, in the streets of Alexandria, Louisiana. It was a homicide.

Marlow Trottie was a woman. Her family has contested this, and publicly misgendered her, and many news sites have already deadnamed and misgendered her as well. I fear what her obituary will say. I fear what her gravestone will say even more.

Their mother picked up after them. They were not required to take plates the kitchen or do the dishes or anything like that.

My mother, who would tell you she is for equality, came home one day, sighed at the mess of dirty dishes scattered about, and said, "Gayle, help me pick up."

"Those aren't my dishes," I said. "I picked up my dishes."

My mother sighed again. "Just help me pick up."

"No," I said again. "I didn't make that fucking mess."

She never approached my brothers and said, "Boys, in this house, you take your dishes to the kitchen." She did not tell our dad, "Hey, tell the boys they need to pick up after themselves."

It was, "Gayle, pick up the dishes."

And when I refused because it was not my fucking mess, I got lectured about being difficult.

See also: My brothers--in a classic dick-move of all siblings--figured out they could pop the lock on the bathroom door and throw it open, and I would freak out because I was in the shower and trying to get five fucking minutes of peace.

When I tell people this, they always, ALWAYS, assume I have sisters. They say shit like “oh I’d love to do that, but I have boys” and when I tell them I only have brothers, “oh you must have eaten a lot of burned dinners then!”

Like, no. To both of those statements. Sure we burned stuff when we were younger but we all learned to cook before 13, that was just the age where it became a scheduled chore. You know who did burn everything? My MOM. My Boomer dad did all the cooking because my mum didn’t want to and he was the one to help when we needed it, though my mum did help with prep/chopping things.

Fast forward to now, middle brother can make the best risotto I’ve ever had and my youngest brother is vegan and makes almost all his own meals because his partner isn’t and he doesn’t expect her to make two meals so he can eat.

The worst part of this social conditioning is how bullshit it is. I know this is not ingrained, I know people are teaching their sons to be assholes, and I look at my middle brother in his immaculate apartment with tasteful decor that he picked out himself and I look at my youngest brother who does all the clothes shopping for him and his partner because she struggles with it and it makes me want to just start biting people.

• this is true even if you are a woman who knows how you personally have been wronged by the patriarchy. your perspective is valuable, but it is not all that there is.

• this also means you don't glean it by following a bunch of "feminist posters". Its more complex than will fit in a social media post.

• Its also fairly important to note this applies to liberatory practices against all bigotries. I specify this because trans women, women of color, disabled women, etc, all need liberation along more than just feminist lines. You can get pretty far reading just feminist theory but you gotta read black feminist theory, transfeminist theory, etc. This is especially true if you're a cishet white feminist, you might accidentally hurt those less advantaged than you if you go around being feminist without accounting for them.

I've seen "autism isn't an excuse to be a picky eater," "autism isn't an excuse to struggle with tone/misread sarcasm in a post," "autism isn't an excuse to be bad at social cues" (with the comment of "literally just go out and learn by talking to people, it's not that hard," as if autistic people don't already do that), "autism isn't an excuse to not make eye contact, that's so rude," "autism isn't an excuse to wear headphones in class or work, nobody else gets to do that," and "autism isn't an excuse to be unemployed/live with your parents/not leave the house enough" (wondering if this person has any idea HSN autistic people exist?). Some people here are like half a drink away from saying having flat affect is "literally weaponized incompetence!!!" or something. I'm starting to wonder what you people think autism even is. Because if you've found a way for autistic people to turn off the most basic symptoms (like sensory sensitivity or difficulty with social settings), that's news and you need to share your incredible findings with the world immediately.