History Is Always Happening

14 years ago when I had recently moved to Alaska, I went hiking with an Aleut friend, and she pointed to a feather lying on the ground and said "hey that's a bald eagle tail feather, you should grab it!" and I was like "uhh I'm very white and that's very illegal" and she went "they're fuckin everywhere up here man. I have 20." so she grabs it off the ground and hands it to me and says "there, now it's a ceremonial gift from an indigenous person."

and I'm like, okay, cool, I guess this is how we do things in Alaska. nice.

so I keep this bald eagle tail feather around for years. display it in my home among other cherished memorabilia from places I've lived and visited, etc.

on a whim, I have just now looked it up. there is no exemption to that law for a ceremonial gift from an indigenous person. the last 7 years I lived in the US, I was technically a bald eagle poacher.

the law against 'picking feathers up off the ground' means that you can't go shoot an eagle then sell the feathers on etsy by saying you 'just found them'. you can't own them no matter where they came from, which makes sure that they're not going to come from any birds killed and then secretly disposed of.

I know that parts of this map might be up for debate (particularly I've seen some argue that some parts that are light blue should be dark, and some parts that are gray should at least be light blue, I've especially seen some people point out that Ethiopia should actually be gray or light blue) but overall, I think it's important to get the occasional reminder of just how extensive European imperialism truly was.

And yes, I know not all countries in Europe have a history of imperialism, and many have been victims ourselves from our neighbors. I am going to speak from the perspective of Iceland, and I will say outright that I am not as well versed in the history and power dynamics of other "smaller" European countries who were not imperialists themselves and also victims of neighboring imperial powers, such as, say, Estonia. However, I am going to speak, at least on the perspective of Iceland on this whole idea that not all European countries should be lumped in with Europe being a colonial / imperial block.

So yes, Iceland has never directly colonized outside of Iceland, and we were victims of Danish rule ourselves. However, so was Greenland, and you only need to compare the treatment of Greenland to Iceland to see that one of these colonies was given much better treatment than the other, and I'm sure you can figure out why. To this day Denmark is still stealing children from Greenlandic parents to take them back to Denmark and raise them with Danish cultural values.

To this day, modern global inequality is rooted in colonialism and imperialism, and even countries without an imperialistic past can still receive peripheral benefits from our neighbors. Iceland in the 21st century currently benefits from a great deal more economic prosperity than a lot of the global south, and that is directly due to us receiving peripheral benefits from our larger imperial neighbors. Europe as an economic block trades within itself resulting in sharing wealth within itself, even to countries like Iceland without a history of colonialism. I need not remind you that this wealth our neighbors share with us often comes from modern imperialism and outright stealing from the global south.

You also only need to listen to how racists from our larger imperial neighbors talk about Iceland as a country and Icelandic people vs, say, Pakistan or Algeria as countries and their people, to see that our imperial neighbors look on us much more favorably due to the perception of us as culturally and historically European, and this is exactly why they are so much more willing to trade and share their imperial wealth with us.

This is why your country doesn't necessarily have to have had an imperial past itself to be a part of the imperial core and benefit from The West's legacy of colonialism and imperialism. This isn't even touching on how much we have also imported racist attitudes and ideologies from our more colonial neighbors, and this heavily affects how we perceive and subsequently treat people of color within our countries. Iceland has had no problems implementing institutional racism, and this comes from both power and attitudes imported from our colonial neighbors.

is wanting to be a wife and mother a requirement for being a woman?

why might OP be annoyed with replies assuming that this post is about being aroace or transmasc if a woman doesn’t want to be a wife or mother?

are there reasons unrelated to sexuality and romantic interest that might make a woman not want to be a wife or mother?

are there reasons unrelated to gender identity and expression that might make a woman not want to be a wife and mother?

core concept: what is gender essentialism?

is it gender essentialism to imply that all women inherently want to be wives and mothers? could this be what OP is critiquing?

look at the notes OP responds to. is it gender essentialism to imply that being a wife and mother is so affixed to womanhood that to not want to be those things means you’re incapable of sexual/romantic feelings, or not a woman?

I needed to think long and hard about why this tweet rubbed me the wrong way. And I think it's becos what this OP describes isn't truly an achievement in egilitarianism, merely the performance of it. It hides the actual reality that many Americans (esp those in middle class and upwards) are more interested in performing this idea of egilitarianism that comforts their egos while not wanting to improve the material realities and working conditions of people in these jobs (hired help, nannies, housekeepers, wait staff).

And there are so many articles and videos and discussions. Like, the scientific community is buzzing about this.

So much research will have to be redone because the data was absolutely compromised, off by orders of magnitude, by using standard lab gloves.

The world is probably not horrifically contaminated by microplastics. Sterile laboratories, however, are contaminated by latex and nitrile gloves.

Sources beyond dude just trust me, for the skeptics.

https://www.technologynetworks.com/applied-sciences/news/scientists-lab-gloves-may-be-causing-an-overestimation-of-microplastics-411138

Nitrile and latex gloves may cause overestimation of microplastics - Phys.org (it’s a pdf)

It also goes without saying that bioessentialism inherently can’t be trans inclusive no matter how hard you try. “All men including trans men—” probably not. “This is only a woman’s issue—” is it really? “Afabs only—” why? “All trans men are like—” what? what are they like? finish the sentence i dare you.

as long as you smile and nod, people are satisfied. it’s just to show that you are nice and there with good intentions. we’re small in a big world and have to rely on other people to be decent to us. so we do our little human dance to each other to say, “i’m not here to hurt you. here’s something we have in common, like the weather or sports or itchy sweaters, so we both know we’re on the same team. we both agree on a basic fact, like that it is rainy or that being itchy is uncomfortable, and this proves we can get along. i’m being light-hearted and non-threatening right now.”

small talk isn’t to get to know a person. it’s just a greeting to affirm you’re buddies in the universe.

Wambalo and other digital workers spent eight hours a day in front of a screen studying photos and videos, drawing boxes around objects and labeling them, teaching AI algorithms to recognize them. Human labelers tag cars and pedestrians to teach autonomous vehicles not to hit them. Humans circle abnormalities in CTs, MRIs and X-rays to teach AI to recognize diseases. Even as AI gets smarter, humans in the loop will always be needed because there will always be new devices and inventions that'll need labeling.

 Humans in the loop are found not only in Kenya, but also in India, the Philippines and Venezuela. They're often countries with low wages but large populations — well educated, but unemployed.

The pay for humans in the loop is $1.50-2 an hour.  "And that is gross, before tax," Wambalo said.  Wambalo, Nathan Nkunzimana and Fasica Berhane Gebrekidan were employed by SAMA, an American outsourcing company that hired for Meta and OpenAI. SAMA, based in the California Bay Area, employed over 3,000 workers in Kenya. Documents reviewed by 60 Minutes show OpenAI agreed to pay SAMA $12.50 an hour per worker, much more than the $2 the workers actually got, though SAMA says what it paid is a fair wage for the region.

It's destroying the environment. It's taking advantage of people who're desperate. It's traumatizing them for dollars an hour--if they're lucky and they aren't denied their pay for no reason. I think about this a lot, that these people were made to look at awful and disgusting and illegal things for the sake of training these stupid AI.

"I looked at people being slaughtered," Wambalo said. "People engaging in sexual activity with animals. People abusing children physically, sexually. People committing suicide." Berhane Gebrekidan thought she'd been hired for a translation job, but she said what she ended up doing was reviewing content featuring dismembered bodies and drone attack victims. 

[...]

SAMA says mental health counseling was provided by "fully-licensed professionals." Workers say it was woefully inadequate.

It's just absurd and disgusting and infuriating. Yes the good applications are worth humans working on. It's not a bad thing--if the people employed to do the work are compensated appropriately and cared for. But so many of the uses are just unnecessary.

examples:

John William Waterhouse official site

"The 'God Made Trans People' billboard is stupid! God didn't make me! I'm an atheist!" Okay. The billboard sits along a major highway in Kansas. We can deduce that the target audience is not you—it's the centrist evangelical Christians driving along that road who could probably be persuaded to become allies as long as we choose our words carefully and don't make them feel attacked for not already knowing everything about trans rights issues. Another one I see a lot is, "We shouldn't be talking about how right-wing legislation catches [privileged in-group] in the crossfire when [marginalized out-group] suffers far more!" I know. I agree with you. Which is why you and I are not the intended audience of this argument!

The entire point of rhetoric is to win over someone who doesn't already fully agree with you. In this case, let's say that someone is Jennifer, the moderate center-right mom in your neighborhood who doesn't really know or care about transgender issues but would be absolutely horrified by the idea of her teenage daughter having to submit to an invasive inspection of her body just to be allowed to play soccer. Tell her, "Banning trans students from sports will inevitably subject all student athletes to invasive gender-policing," or "Legal restrictions on gender-affirming care will make it harder for you to access the hormone replacement therapy you take to treat menopause symptoms," and she is more likely to question her existing beliefs and listen to the rest of what you have to say than if you lead with leftist talking points that she already has a calcified opinion about or which she thinks do not personally affect her.

Huh, you know I never considered that but come to think of it, The Skin Gap could be a major contributing factor to these gendered "thermostat wars" you hear about.

Let's use some random Google image search finds to compare the amount of bare arms and legs, low/wide necklines, low-cut shoes, etc in this "business casual" wardrobe:

vs this one:

This isn't shaming or berating the women who wear these outfits by any means, this is directed at the clothing industry for marketing and pumping out clothing made of thin flimsy material that leaves large parts of the body uncovered for women, while marketing and pumping out clothing made of thick sturdy fabric that gives full coverage to men (as well as the social norms behind all of that enforcing all of this).

...but if a man wore something like this, people would think he had lost his mind!

I just might add that to my reading list, thank you.

As for the examples here, I could see something similar to the bottom outfit being an acceptable school uniform in some places, especially for primary school aged boys.

As for an adult man working in an office? At the very least he would almost definitely get some weird looks and/or snickering from his colleagues, but the chances that he'd get taken aside and told her needs to dress more seriously and professionally would actually be quite high.

This is despite the fact that the top outfit, when worn by a woman, would be perfectly acceptable in the same setting (despite actually having less coverage than the bottom outfit).

Indeed, that's why I was saying "contributes to". As someone else pointed out in the comments, androgens do tend to make one run hot, so I would totally believe that men generally do have more of a tendency to run hot.

However, if androgens do tend to make one run hot, that means that the skin gap if anything should run the opposite way than it does in reality. If men tend to run hot, men should be the ones in shorts or skirts (including in formal/professional settings) to help the legs keep cool, wearing clothing out of thin gauzy material for more breathability, and wearing low cut tops to help the torso keep cool.

It's interesting you mention that, because the woman who coined the term "the skin gap" is an Orthodox Jewish woman, and in her original blog post where she coined the term "the skin gap" she talks about how the women most heavily impacted by this are Muslim and Orthodox Jewish women.

10h

Dear Representative [Name],

I am writing to express my strong opposition to H.R. 8250 (The "Parents Decide Act"). As your constituent and a concerned citizen, I believe this bill introduces unprecedented risks to digital privacy and security.

Specifically, I am alarmed by:

SEC. 2(a)(1)(B): Requiring age verification to even use an operating system creates a mandatory "hardware lockout" that ends anonymous computing and forces users to hand over sensitive identification data to major corporations just to power on their devices.

SEC. 2(a)(3): Mandating that OS providers create a system for all app developers to access verification data is a massive security vulnerability. This effectively creates a centralized API of user identities accessible to thousands of third-party developers, many of whom may lack adequate data protection.

This bill does not protect children; it creates a centralized surveillance infrastructure at the OS level. I urge you to protect the privacy of your constituents and vote NO on H.R. 8250.

Sincerely,

[Your Name]

Given that, in the wake of this mandatory identification policy, my country seems to be moving to hand over its citizens biometric data, like fingerprints, Face ID files, and identification documents, over to the USA and to ICE to maintain the visa free travel (ESTA) we have, I strongly urge any US resident to send these emails, or make calls.

But if you can’t do that, the most powerful thing you can do is spread the word. Tell your friends, family, coworkers, anyone who can help.

My reach will likely be small, and so I don’t know if this will mean very much in the grand scheme of things, but I cannot stand to see this tracking happen to another population as it did to mine.

And if you think it won’t affect you, it will. All anonymity goes out the window when your accounts can be linked via your personal ID