AerialMinds

Resistance can take many forms - from education to litigation, from within a small community to throughout the globe. Though I have omitted highly important figures like Yuri Kochiyama and Fred Korematsu, I wanted to spotlight lesser-known individuals who resisted injustice in a variety of ways. They demonstrate that we too can act against oppression and inequality, however we are able.

[Aiko Herzig-Yoshinaga] [Ina Sugihara] [Mitsuye Endo] [Norman Mineta] [Aki Kurose] 

Many thanks to The Densho Project for the research materials

I grew up believing that women had contributed nothing to the world until the 1960′s. So once I became a feminist I started collecting information on women in history, and here’s my collection so far, in no particular order. 

Lepa Svetozara Radić (1925–1943) was a partisan executed at the age of 17 for shooting at German soldiers during WW2. As her captors tied the noose around her neck, they offered her a way out of the gallows by revealing her comrades and leaders identities. She responded that she was not a traitor to her people and they would reveal themselves when they avenged her death. She was the youngest winner of the Order of the People’s Hero of Yugoslavia, awarded in 1951

23 year old Phyllis Latour Doyle was British spy who parachuted into occupied Normandy in 1944 on a reconnaissance mission in preparation for D-day. She relayed 135 secret messages before France was finally liberated. 

Catherine Leroy, War Photographer starting with the Vietnam war. She was taken a prisoner of war. When released she continued to be a war photographer until her death in 2006.

Lieutenant Pavlichenko was a Ukrainian sniper in WWII, with a total of 309 kills, including 36 enemy snipers. After being wounded, she toured the US to promote friendship between the two countries, and was called ‘fat’ by one of her interviewers, which she found rather amusing. 

Johanna Hannie “Jannetje” Schaft was born in Haarlem. She studied in Amsterdam had many Jewish friends. During WWII she aided many people who were hiding from the Germans and began working in resistance movements. She helped to assassinate two nazis. She was later captured and executed. Her last words were “I shoot better than you.”. 

Nancy wake was a resistance spy in WWII, and was so hated by the Germans that at one point she was their most wanted person with a price of 5 million francs on her head. During one of her missions, while parachuting into occupied France, her parachute became tangled in a tree. A french agent commented that he wished that all trees would bear such beautiful fruit, to which she replied “Don’t give me any of that French shit!”, and later that evening she killed a German sentry with her bare hands. 

After her husband was killed in WWII, Violette Szabo began working for the resistance. In her work, she helped to sabotage a railroad and passed along secret information. She was captured and executed at a concentration camp at age 23. 

Grace Hopper was a computer scientist who invented the first ever compiler. Her invention makes every single computer program you use possible. 

Mona Louise Parsons was a member of an informal resistance group in the Netherlands during WWII. After her resistance network was infiltrated, she was captured and was the first Canadian woman to be imprisoned by the Nazis. She was originally sentenced to death by firing squad, but the sentence was lowered to hard lard labor in a prison camp. She escaped. 

Simone Segouin was a Parisian rebel who killed an unknown number of Germans and captured 25 with the aid of her submachine gun. She was present at the liberation of Paris and was later awarded the ‘croix de guerre’. 

Mary Edwards Walker is the only woman to have ever won an American Medal of Honor. She earned it for her work as a surgeon during the Civil War. It was revoked in 1917, but she wore it until hear death two years later. It was restored posthumously. 

Italian neuroscientist won a Nobel Prize for her discovery of nerve growth factor. She died aged 103. 

EDIT

jinxedinks added: Her name was Rita Levi-Montalcini. She was jewish, and so from 1938 until the end of the fascist regime in Italy she was forbidden from working at university. She set up a makeshift lab in her bedroom and continued with her research throughout the war.  

A snapshot of the women of color in the woman’s army corps on Staten Island

This is an ongoing project of mine, and I’ll update this as much as I can (It’s not all WWII stuff, I’ve got separate folders for separate achievements). 

Annie Jump Cannon was an american astronomer and, in addition to possibly having one of the best names in history, was co-creator of one of the first scientific classification systems of stars, based on temperature. 

Melba Roy Moutan was a Harvard educated mathematician who led a team of mathematicians at NASA, nicknamed ‘Computers’ for their number processing prowess. 

Joyce Jacobson Kaufman was a chemist who developed the concept of conformational topology, and studied at Johns Hopkins University before it officially allowed women entry in 1970. 

Vera Rubin is an astronomer and has co-authored 114 peer reviewed papers. She specializes in the study of dark matter and galaxy rotation rates. 

Mary Sherman Morgan was a rocket scientist who invented hydyne, a liquid fuel that powered the USA’s Jupiter C-rocket. 

Chien-Siung Wu was a physicist who worked on the Manhattan Project, as well as experimental radioactive studies. She was the first woman to become president of the American Physical Society. 

Mildred Catherine Rebstock was the first person to synthesize the antibiotic chloromycetin.

Ruby Hirose was a chemist who conducted vital research about an infant paralysis vaccine. 

Hattie Elizabeth Alexander was a pediatrician and microbiologist who developed a remedy for Haemophilus influenzae, and conducted vital research on antibiotic resistance. 

Marie Tharp was a scientist who mapped the floor of the Atlantic Ocean and provided proof of continental drift. 

Mae Jamison is an astronaut who holds a degree in chemical engineering from Stanford University and was the first black woman in space.

Ada Lovelace was a mathematician and considered to be the world’s first computer programmer. 

Patricia E Bath is ophthalmologist and the inventor of the Laserphaco Probe, which is used to treat cataracts. 

Barbara McClintock won a Nobel prize for her discovery that genes could move in and between chromosomes.

Josephine Baker, though today remembered for her dancing, singing, and larger than life personality, actually played a significant role in WWII. She joined Women’s Auxiliary of the Free French Air Force, got her pilot’s license in 1933, and by 1944 she raised 3,143,000 francs for the war effort. She entertained the troops, which was a doubly whammy of justice. She refused to entertain segregated troops, so the French military was forced to integrate the troops for all her performances. She also smuggled secret messages in her music across countless borders. 

Audrey Hepburn is known as one of the most beautiful and talent actresses of the 1950′s, but her contributions to the world started far before her first film and continued until well after her cinematic heyday. In WWII stricken Austria, Audrey, then an aspiring ballerina, would give secret ballet performances to raise money for the Austrian resistance. She even helped smuggle secret messages for the resistance. On one such occasion, she was stopped by an enemy soldier. He asked her what she was doing and she, pretending not to understand, presented him with a bouquet of wildflowers she’d been absentmindedly picking. She was let go and the message was delivered safely. It was her experience in the war which would later prompt her to become one of the founders of UNICEF. 

Hedy Lamarr was an actress well known for her piercing gaze and deadpan wit. What she’s less known for is being a brilliant mathematician who invented the frequency hopping spread spectrum. Without her invention, we wouldn’t have bluetooth or wifi. 

Ching Shih was one of the world’s most successful pirates. At the death of her (pirate) husband, the former prostitute took command of his ships and started her pirating career. At the height of her career she commanded 1800 ships and more than 80,000 male and female pirates. She became powerful enough to challenge every empire’s naval forces in the world and her Red Flag Fleet was feared from the Chinese coast to Malaysia. Unable to defeat her, the Chinese government caved and offered her amnesty. She surprised everyone by taking it and became one of the few pirates in history to retire. She also took care of her crew even after her retirement; most of Ching’s pirates were pardoned. She died a respectable millionaire. 

Sophie School was an active member of the White Rose non-violent resistance group in WWII Germany. In 1943 she, along with her brother and the rest of the White Rose were arrested for passing out leaflets encouraging passive resistance. She and her brother were beheaded by guillotine just a few hours later. Her last words were “How can we expect righteousness to prevail when there is hardly anyone willing to give himself up individually to a righteous cause. Such a fine, sunny day, and I have to go, but what does my death matter, if through us, thousands of people are awakened and stirred to action?”

(Written by Emporer-of-nerds) Constance Markievicz (was a) Very important figure in the Irish independence movement, first woman elected to the British House of Commons, and one of the first women to hold a cabinet position in government (Minister for Labour of the Irish Republic (which was a short-lived revolutionary state predating the current Ireland/Éire))!

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu was an English ambassador to Turkey in the early 1700s, and documented her experience carefully. When she saw the Turkish perform an early method of small-pox vaccination, she urgently wrote home. She is responsible for the first variolation small-pox vaccinations in Europe. 

Marie Curie is fairly well known. Unfortunately she’s often known as the ‘assistant’ to her husband. She was a pioneering physicist and chemist, who’s work with radiation was groundbreaking. She was the first woman to win a Nobel prize and the only one to win one in two fields for her discovery of polonium and uranium. It’s also notable that she was the first woman in Europe to receive a doctorate degree. Her discoveries made the x-ray machine possible, and Curie immediately put it to work. She invented a small, mobile type of x-ray machine and worked with her daughter at casualty collection points in WWI, using the machine to locate shrapnel and bullets in wounded soldiers. She died of pernicious anemia, a result of years of radioactive exposure. Many of her notebooks are still too radioactive to be read. 

Margherita Hack was an Italian astrophysicist and became administrator of the Trieste Astronomical Observatory, bringing it to renowned respect and fame. She was a prolific science writer and was awarded the Targa Giuseppe Piazzi for the scientific research, and later the Cortina Ulisse Prize for scientific dissemination. Asteroid 8558 Hack, discovered in 1995, was named in her honor.

Note that there were many many more, both before and after photography was invented.

ART PRINTS BY GENIS CARRERAS

Absolutism

Dualism 

Realism

Relativism

Eclecticism

Syncretism

Objectivism

Utilitarianism

Nihilism

A few months ago, I went to a big family gathering at my grandparents’s house and ran into a cousin of mine. She seemed much older than the last time I had seen her (oh, the passage of time), so I asked her what age she was. She replied, “Oh, I’m fifteen.” And my immediate reaction?

“Oh my god, I am so sorry.”

She laughed, which gives me a little bit of hope that maybe, for her, being fifteen isn’t a complete fucking nightmare. But I think she recognized what I was saying on some level. Fifteen is, without a shadow of a doubt, the worst age. Wait, maybe fourteen. Thirteen? Twelve was pretty bad, too. Fuck it, they all suck. Nothing summarizes being a young girl better than this simple quote from The Virgin Suicides: “You’re not even old enough to know how bad life gets.” “Obviously, Doctor, you’ve never been a thirteen-year-old girl.”

It’s amazing, really. I spent my entire childhood counting down the days until I could be a teenager. I planned everything out perfectly: I would go shopping with friends by myself downtown by fourteen, kissing cute boys by fifteen, losing my virginity by sixteen, driving a cute car by seventeen, and off to university to have even more amazing experiences at eighteen. My life would be a fucking commercial, starring me, my best friends, and Jordan Catalano. It was going to happen.

Until it didn’t.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I actually had a few of those things on my list. I drove a pretty bitchin’ baby blue VW Beetle and I did end up going to university. I’m luckier than most. But where were the boys? Where were the cute clothes? Who took my fantasy and dumped a steaming bag of hot garbage juice on it?

We sell this idea of what you’re life is going to be to young girls from the fucking get-go. To be fair, that’s advertising, right? Selling you the life you want, no matter the age? Well, unfortunately, little girls can’t see through the bullshit. We internalize all of it. And that’s what makes the hardships of being a teenage girl sting even more.

I was thrown into the pot of steaming dogshit pretty early. I was wearing a bra at nine, dealing with self loathing by ten, and by twelve, I was officially balls-deep in it. And it didn’t go away. Between twelve and (I’ll be generous and say) seventeen, all the garbage just kept circulating in my system. It would just evolve, or die down, only to flare up at the slightest irritation. That’s what being a teenage girl is: you’re full of poison. Mostly, you just poison yourself over and over again, but sometimes some of it leaks out of you and onto someone else.

At twelve, most girls understand real sadness. Twelve, though it seems so young to us now, felt really old at the time. By this point, you’ve already been told how to be, and realized that you’re not measuring up. By twelve, your skin is already shit, and your body is too flabby or your breasts haven’t come in yet. Worst of all, when you’re a girl, by twelve you’ve probably already been in a situation that made you feel threatened sexually. Let that sink in. From the top of my head, I can think of four moments in my life, before the age of twelve, when someone crossed a line with me. Four. This is not abnormal.

By thirteen, you’re already prepared to destroy yourself. When you’re a sad teenage girl, you try a lot of things out, see which ways work best for you. It’s like you can feel the poison bubbling under your skin, all the time. I recognized this in other girls. I could see them clawing at their skin, lashing out at others, trying everything they could possibly dream up. So they cut themselves, make themselves sick, scream at their mothers, smoke, drink, send pictures to the wrong person, do things they might not want to do. Because literally anything, anything that might make things go away for five minutes, is worth it. 

By fourteen, I felt like a veteran. In my mind, I had seen some shit, man. I had felt some fucking feelings. And honestly, I thought things were getting better. I was still a bit broken from things that had happen in middle school, but hey, this is high school! I had been dreaming about this forever! It has to be better, right?

At fifteen, the optimism in me had died. I woke up every day with an anchor on my chest. I went from a solid B student to barely passing. I wouldn’t go out with friends, because suddenly they were branching out, meeting new people, and I didn’t know how to handle that. My lifelong fear of men really didn’t do me any favors with boys. When you flinch every time they move a hand too quickly, and find it nearly impossible to look them in the eye without wanting to throw up, you don’t get asked out much. My mother didn’t know what to do with me, so I would spend all day, every day, locked in my room. University? Fuck no, man. I could barely get my ass out of bed as a basic daily requirement, how could I possibly want to continue my education?

Sixteen was… different. Good and bad. I had woken up from the dead, but it’s not like things just go away. I was doing well in school, I started thinking about university again, and I even hung out with friends sometimes. But things were not great internally. I gave myself over to some extremely unhealthy behavior, which went completely unnoticed. Whatever. It’s still kind of a blur to me. What can I say? I’m an almost adult, I’m allowed to not have everything figured out.

And then, like the rising sun, seventeen happened. I got better. I worked harder. I had a goal, and I was rising to the challenge. I actually enjoyed school, and sometimes, I even went to parties (and had a little bit of fun!). I gained enough control over my unhealthier behavior to start healing, even if the process has been painfully slow. I finally understood what it was like to wake up and be okay. I graduated high school and went off to the university of my choice. Not happily ever after, but I’ll save that for another time.

Now, if you’re still reading, you might be confused. Why am I listing off all the crappy shit I felt between the ages of twelve and seventeen? If you hated being a teenage girl so much, why do you love them? 

Because even with every single fucking thing a teenage girl has to deal with, they still manage to do something so mind blowing, yet completely simple: love, unabashedly.

You know those girls everyone loves to shit all over? The ones who really fucking love something? Those girls, man. They take all that energy, all that circulating fire in their veins, and instead of letting it destroy them, they choose to love, ferociously. Be it a band, or a book, or a series of films. They do it to keep themselves sane, and yet we mock them for it. Teenage girls find a buoy for themselves in the sea of emotional ruin, and they hold on tighter than anyone else. 

One of the most popular ways people like to hate teenage girls is to complain about their “insane” crushes on boy band members. Now, let me fucking tell you something: those big dumb crushes are what helps a teenage girl develop her sexuality in a safe environment that she can control. In her world, she can listen to One Direction and hear all these songs about how great she is, and how much these cute non-threatening boys want to make her feel special. Why is this so important? Because no one is pushing them. There’s no fourteen year old boy shoving his clammy hands down your shirt without your consent. These fantasy boys are not convincing a girl to send naked pictures, only to show all their friends and call her a slut. In the fantasy land of boy bands, the girl has all the power. And we need to stop judging them for wanting to escape into that.

I love teenage girls because even if they hate themselves, they love other people. I remember how I felt, seeing other girls go through what I was going through. It ruined me. I wanted so desperately to help them out of the muck, but when you’re submerged yourself, there’s not a lot you can do. Teenage girls understand, and they want to make sure no one else feels the way they do. I see it on websites like Tumblr all the time. It’s fucking beautiful.

I love teenage girls because society loves to blame them for everything. The self-obsessed teenage girl is always the face of the “problem” with youth today. Apparently, these superficial teenage girls who love their iPhones too much are the issue. Not, you know, the people conditioning them to believe that their worth is tied to how many Likes they got on their last selfie. No, you’re right, let’s focus on the girls who post on Facebook too much. Great.

I’m in film school now, so often I get asked, “What kind of work do you want to make?” Usually, I don’t have an answer. Good work, I guess? But thinking about it, I know what I want to do: I want to make movies for teenage girls. Stories about teenage girls with agency, who rebel, who take all that energy and channel it into something, even if it’s not necessarily positive. I want to represent the girls I love so much. Because I have been one of those girls, and I will always carry a part of that with me.

By Anonymous

In first grade, a boy named John— a notorious troublemaker—systematically chased every girl in our class during recess trying to kiss her on the lips. Most gave in eventually. It was easier to give in than keep running. When it was my turn, I turned and faced him, grabbed his glasses off his weasel face, and stomped on them on the hard blacktop. He ran to the principal’s office and cried.

In fifth grade, I was asked to be a boy’s girlfriend over email. It was the first email I ever received. He actually told me he wanted to send me an email, so I went home and made an AOL account. We went to a carnival and he won me a Garfield stuffed animal, and then he gave me a 3 Doors Down CD. A few days later, he broke up with me, and asked for Garfield and the CD back. I said no.

In sixth grade, a girl in my year gave head to an eighth grader in the back of the school bus while playing Truth or Dare.

In the summer after sixth grade, I kissed a boy for the first time at sleep away camp. He was my summer love. During the end-of-the-summer dining hall announcements, where kids usually announced lost sweatshirts and Walkmen, an older girl stepped up to the microphone, tossed her hair behind her shoulders, and proudly stated, “I lost something very precious to me last night. My virginity. If anyone finds it, please let me know.” The dining hall erupted into laughter and cheers. She was barred from ever coming back to the camp again, and wasn’t allowed to say goodbye to anyone.

In seventh grade, I told my brother I decided when I was older wanted a Hummer. What I really meant was I wanted a Jeep, but I didn’t know a lot about cars. My mother overheard and screamed at me for “wanting a Hummer.”

In the summer after freshman year of high school, I went to sleepaway field hockey camp with many of my close friends. One of them, named Megan, I had been friends with since kindergarten. One night when I was showering, she ripped open the curtain and snapped a photo of me on her disposable camera. I screamed. She laughed. We both laughed when I got out of the shower a few minutes later. After camp was over, her father took the camera to the convenience store to get it developed. When he gave the finished photos back to her, he said, “Your friend [Anonymous] has grown up.”

Sophomore year of high school, one of my best friends Hilary had a party in her basement while her mom was away. We invited some of the guys in our grade and someone’s older brother bought us a handle of vodka. One of the boys who came sat next to me in Spanish class. His name was Thomas. I remember playing a simple game, where we passed the bottle of vodka around in a circle and drank. I remember being happily tipsy and having fun, to suddenly being very drunk. Thomas and I started chanting numbers in Spanish, and he leaned towards me and kissed me. We kissed in the middle of the party, with all of our friends cheering. Then we went into Hilary’s bedroom.

Hilary’s bedroom was in the basement, on the ground floor, with a large window next to her bed. When someone went outside to smoke a cigarette, they realized it was a front row seat to what was happening in the bedroom. It was dark outside, and the light on was in the bedroom. They called everyone outside to watch. I don’t remember getting undressed, but apparently we were both completely naked in Hilary’s bed. A friend of mine told me later she tried to open the door and stop what was happening, but Thomas must have locked it. They said they pounded on the door. I don’t remember hearing them pounding. I don’t remember seeing everyone’s faces outside the window.  I remember Thomas holding my head down, and shoving his penis into my mouth. I remember trying to resist, pulling back, but he held his hands firmly on my head, pushing my face up and down. That’s all that I remember.

The next day, my friends and I went out to dinner at one of our favorite local restaurants. I couldn’t eat anything, and it wasn’t because I was hung over. Every time I tried to put food in my mouth, I felt like I was choking. Anytime a flash of the night before appeared in my mind, I felt like vomiting. My friends sat with me in silence. Then they told me a girl named Lindsey, who had briefly dated Thomas freshman year, had stood outside and watched the entire time. Even after everyone else stopped watching. My friends said they didn’t watch.

On Monday, Thomas and I sat next to each other in Spanish. We didn’t speak. We didn’t make eye contact. I went to the girls bathroom and threw up. I hear Lindsey and Thomas live together, now, ten years later.

Junior year of high school, my teacher for Honors Spanish was named Señor Gonzales. Señor Gonzales had all of the girls sit in the front row. Señor Gonzales called on any girl who was wearing a skirt to write on the chalkboard. Señor Gonzales asked a friend of mine, who had broken her finger playing an after school sport, if she broke her finger because “she liked it rough.” Señor Gonzales was a tenured teacher.

Senior year of high school, I got my first real boyfriend. His name was Colin. He was on the lacrosse team with Thomas. He told me that sophomore year, Thomas told everyone on the team what happened that night at Hilary’s. Everyone cheered. Colin said that, even then, he had a crush on me. Even then, he wanted to punch Thomas.

Colin and I lost our virginities to each other. Colin said if I got pregnant, he would make me have the baby. He didn’t believe in abortion. Colin said if I got pregnant, he would make me have a C-section. Colin said that if I didn’t have a C-section, my vagina would be too loose for him to ever enjoy having sex with me again. Colin said that he wouldn’t let our child breastfeed. He said his mother gave him formula, and that he turned out just fine. I didn’t get pregnant.

Junior year of college, I lived in Denmark for the spring semester and studied at the University of Copenhagen. Copenhagen is one of the safest cities in the world. Guns are illegal there. Pepper spray is illegal there. One night, my friends and I went to a concert at a crowded club in a part of the city I didn’t know very well. I brought a tiny purse with money, my apartment key, and my international cell phone. For some reason it made sense at the time to put my purse inside my friend’s purse. Maybe I didn’t feel like carrying it. We were both drinking. My friend left the concert to go home with her boyfriend. One by one, everyone I was there with left the concert, until I was suddenly alone and I realized I didn’t have my purse, or any money for a cab ride home.

I started walking in the direction that felt right. I walked for a long time. I had no idea where I was, and didn’t recognize the area. It was almost 4 am. I was on a residential street when a cab pulled up next to me. I asked the driver if he could drive me to an intersection down the street from my apartment.

I don’t have any money, I said.

I really need your help, I said.

I will do it for free, he said.

Sit in the front, he said.

I sat in the front. We drove in silence for some time, until he pulled over on the side of a dark street.

I don’t want to do it for free anymore, he said.

He locked the car doors and reached across the center console and slipped his hand up my skirt. He grabbed my vagina. Hard. I pushed his hand away and unlocked the door. I ran down the street and realized he had taken me a block away from the intersection I wanted. I walked to my apartment and threw rocks at my roommate’s window until she let me inside. She yelled at me for waking her up. I escaped. Nothing happened. I was fine.

The summer after I graduated college I helped Hilary find an internship. She was an art major and wanted something for her resume besides waitressing. We found a posting on Craigslist to be a studio assistant for a painter in the Bronx. It was listed as an unpaid internship. The toll for the George Washington Bridge was twelve dollars, plus gas, but she got the internship anyway. She wanted the experience.

The artist was a 38-year-old Canadian painter named Bradley. Hilary was 22.There was another intern there, an art student from Manhattan named Stella.  Bradley needed assistants to help him make bubble wrap paintings. Stella and Hilary would take a syringe and fill the tiny bubbles with different color paints until it formed a mosaic. Bradley always had Hilary stay after Stella left to clean the paintbrushes and syringes. He told Hilary she was beautiful. More beautiful than his wife, who he only married for citizenship. He told Hilary they had a loveless marriage. He told Hilary he wanted to have her beautiful children. They began an affair. He told Hilary has wife knew and didn’t care. He told Hilary he was going to leave his wife soon.

Everyday Hilary drove to the Bronx, cleaned Bradley’s paintbrushes, and had sex on the studio floor. Everyday she went home with no money, and everyday she paid the toll at the George Washington Bridge. She needed the internship for her resume, she said. It was too late to find a new job, she said.

I could go on. I could tell you a lot more. About the whistles on the sidewalk, the kids who sat at the bottom of the stairs in high school to look up our skirts, my friend who was a prostitute in South Carolina, the men who’ve cornered me in parking lots and bars calling me a tease, the unwanted grabbing on the subway, the many times my father has called me fat, the time I traveled to the Philippines and discovered Western men pay preteen locals to spend the week in their hotel, the messages on OKCupid asking to “fart in my mouth.” About how I wasn’t sure if I had been raped because I was drunk and kissed Thomas back. How he raped my mouth and not my vagina, so that must not be rape. How easy it was for me to escape the dark street in Copenhagen, and how that made it not matter since “it could’ve been worse.”

Men have no idea what it takes to be a woman. To grin and bear it and persevere. The constant state of war, navigating the relentless obstacle course of testosterone and misogyny, where they think we are property to be owned and plowed. But we’re not. We are people, just like them. Equals, in fact, or at least that’s the core of what feminism is still trying to achieve. The job is not over. We’ve made great progress. There are female CEOs, though not very many. There are females writing for the New York Times and winning Pulitzer prizes, though not very many.  There are female politicians, though not very many. But these advances are only on paper. The job won’t be over until equality permeates the air we breathe, the streets we walk and the homes we live in.

I think back to how easy it was for me, in first grade, to feel fearless and strong in my conviction to stomp on John’s glasses. I felt right in reacting how I did, because John’s behavior was wrong. But his was an elementary learning of the wide boundaries his gender would go on to afford him. For me, it would never again be so easy.

Forget all about gross herbal tea and dumb cat videos, I promise you’ll be smiling and laughing again within a minute!

Ok so these will make you smile (and possibly melt aah)

Freddie Mercury to Roger Taylor ‘C’mon Blondie’

Roger Taylor saying ‘I love you too’

Bob Dylan playing with words

The Rolling Stones miming ‘I Got You Babe’

Roger Waters speaking French

Jimmy Page humming

Brian May talks about Percy the hedgehog’s ordeal

John Lennon being incredibly cute

Brian May saying ‘It’s the pursuit of knowledge darling, isn’t it?’

Paul McCartney saying ‘hi’ in different voices

Queen talks

Jimmy Page giving out a radio message (I dARE you not to smile)

Freddie Mercury wishing you a nice day

Brian May saying ‘I’m thinking of you’

John Lennon and Paul McCartney goofing around

Brian May and Roger Taylor singing ‘I Was Born to Love You’

I’m in Love (demo) 

John Lennon and Paul McCartney hugging (at least watch it for the background music)

The Doors arriving at Heathrow Airport

Pink Floyd discussing oysters

Bruce Springsteen being a cutie

Bob Dylan interview

Ice bucket challenges: Ronnie Wood, Robert Plant, Brian May

Gorgeous but a bit mad (David Gilmour and Rick Wright)

‘Are You Lonesome Tonight’, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards

Paul’s boner interview (Roundup interview with The Beatles)

Freddie Mercury taking a bath

The Beatles’ First U.S. Visit

Mick Jagger’s first TV appearance

Freddie Mercury does the weather

Brian May Sleepy (Drunken) Blues

A Midsummer Night’s Dream spoof (The Beatles)

Big Night Out, The Beatles: here and here

Pass the pie with Robert Plant and Cozy Powell

The music of Lennon and McCartney

Jimmy Page saying “wow”

Pepsi commercial with David Bowie and Tina Turner

Ringo Starr imitating Donald Duck

Bob Dylan’s answering machine message

John Lennon and Mick Jagger (Rock n Roll Circus + Dirty Mac performance)

And here, if you need to laugh

Four minutes of Robert Plant making fun of JPJ

Paul McCartney raps Humpty Dumpty

Keith Moon accepting Beatles award

I don’t even know (Mick Jagger)

What even (Paul, Ringo, George)

Paul McCartney being his usual sassy self

Pete Townshend saying ‘My spaghetti' 

This is from a man that was never truly appreciated

Keith Moon and Ringo Starr rap

John Lennon imitating Bob Dylan

Mick Jagger on SNL (includes the monologue, Steven Tyler impression, and the karaoke bar)

Paul McCartney and Jimmy Fallon switch accents

Bo Rhap ending outtake

Why don’t you all fffUCK OFF MIMI

Moo - Ringo Starr

Charlie being a cutie (The Stones Exhibitionism)

‘Paul Buried Me’ trailer

u ok paul??

Pete Townshend, a musical genius

David Bowie’s prank call

George Martin and Paul McCartney

Ringo Starr (from Thomas the Tank Engine)

‘I Wish I Was a Powerpuff Girl’, Ringo Starr

Just listen

Old man Ringo, need I say more?

Brian May saying ‘bunny rabbit’ in cyborg voice

Things I, Mick Jagger, have learned after 50 years in rock n roll

Shit beatlemaniacs say

Paul McCartney speaking with American accent

Mick Jagger introduces Monty Python live

The Who interview

Scrambled eggs, Paul McCartney and Jimmy Fallon

The Pirate Song, George Harrison

Bowie secrets

Dancing in the Street, David Bowie and Mick Jagger

TV add for Queen’s Greatest Video Hits II

The good stuff

John Lennon talking masturbation

Jimmy Page saying ‘long handjob’

Pete Townshend talking about Mick’s equipment

Robert talks about Jimmy’s pants falling down 

Keith Moon on pinball

Mick Jagger licking Ronnie Wood in the face

‘Naughty’, George Harrison

Freddie talks about Brian’s big cock

Roger Daltrey

Robert Plant talking about lemons (and the lack of squeezes)

Lou Reed saying ‘booty’

Two full minutes of Robert Plant saying ‘babe’

‘Penetration’, Roger Taylor

I don’t know if this is ‘good stuff’ or just eh?? (Brian May)

Listen to these cuties laughing

Ringo Starr, Paul McCartney, Keith Moon, Roger Daltrey, Jimmy Page, Paul McCartney II, Jimmy Page II, Marc Bolan and Ringo Starr, Robert Plant 

“We don’t read and write poetry because it’s cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life.”