*Insert C.S. Lewis quote here*

This post showed up in my "for you" feed, and I commented that 63% of people have internalized misogyny, to which two other people asked how being afraid of getting pregnant was misogynistic, so I thought I would explain.

First, the option that the majority of people voted on was this: Pregnancy "sounds like unreal terrifying body horror". Not just something scary or dangerous, but body horror. So lets talk about that first.

Body horror comes from taking something normal and natural about the body and twisting it. Putting teeth where there should not be teeth. Grafting dozens of arms onto every part of the body. Faces in odd places. Limbs bending the wrong direction. Think Dark Souls et al.

Now, one could try to describe normal bodily processes as horrifying, but I wouldn't call this body horror. Take puberty, and all the crazy things your body goes through during it, or describe exactly how each organ keeps you alive in detail. Or take "Skeletons", by Ray Bradbury. This is a horror story in which a man feels aches in his bones and becomes convinces that his skeleton--all skeletons--are some form of Other, some entity inside people that is trying to get out. He describes seeing his wife's skeleton peering out of her mouth each time she smiles, and seeing the shape of people's bones poking out just below the skin.

The thing about this story is that the skeleton is not actually what is horrifying, but rather the man's phobia of the skeleton. It's one of those stories where the protagonist is clearly not in his right mind. It only veers into body horror once the inhuman doctor that first stoked his fears into a phobia shows up and sucks the skeleton out of the man, leaving a gasping, jelly-like mass with nothing to hold it up.

Body horror inherently comes from something being unnatural, something a body is not supposed to have or be able to do.

If one were to view a racial trait, such as more or less body hair, darker or lighter skin, or the presence or absence of epicanthic folds as horrifying, we would call that person racist. If they viewed their own racial traits as horrifying, we wold call that internalized racism.

So now we can circle back to pregnancy. True, pregnancy can be dangerous and scary, and one's body goes through some pretty crazy changes during and after it, but it's also something that female bodies have evolved to be able to do. The potential to become pregnant--the specific gametes and organs and hormones--is literally what makes a body female, at least for placental mammals like humans. Pregnancy is a normal, natural, uniquely and definitively female biological process.

100% agree homeless people should just starve and dumpster dive till le epic revolution happens!

Also…attending town meetings? We used to FLOOD public comment trying to get the police defunded and members of city hall would ignore us and vote against us anyway. What the FUCK are you talking about. 

I’d like you to look into the face of a disabled mother who was just told that habitat for humanity is going to build her a safe house (using volunteered labor and donated supplies) for her family after a year of them sleeping in her van: and tell her she doesn’t deserve that bandaid. Tell her the volunteers that took extra care to make the house wheelchair accessible for her youngest - didn’t REALLY make a difference. They wasted their time, right? You can tell her that her problems are systemic and explain the social issues and politics at play that allowed her to fall through the cracks all you like, but she’ll probably tell you to go tell it to someone else because she allready KNOWS. She lived it. If you’re not going to actually do something constructive about it - Ｆｕｃｋ off. Pick up a hammer and help build the house- or get the Ｆｕｃｋ out of the way.

If a child is starving, you feed them. They will starve before your protests are heard by politicians. They will starve while you work to prevent starvation in the future. They will starve while you try and solve the problem. If you aren’t willing to personally make a bowl of soup to feed that child - your words are meaningless to me. They are meaningless to that child.

When I was a kid, we were poor. My brother slept in a pile of clothes because he didn’t have a mattress. He wrote to Santa and asked for a bed and sent the letter in the mail and someone at the post office read it and they decided to volunteer their time to raise money and buy my brother a bed. They dropped it off on Christmas Eve. They told my brother that Santa sent them. They didnt even leave their name. I started volunteering shortly after, and then made nonprofit work my life until I was too disabled to continue. In my work I know I saved at least 2 lives because those people told me so - but potentially there were more. 2 human lives, that I might not have been there to save, if a volunteers actions hadn’t inspired me to continue the good work. Every ounce of good I did, was because of that mattress.

The thing is - volunteering and helping other people makes a direct and tangible difference in the lives of people. Not just feeding them and putting a roof over their heads - It reminds them of the best of what people can be and inspires them to do their own good. It affirms to them that we SEE the injustice that they face and we are going to HELP them in whatever way we can, even if it doesnt solve the systemic problem. Even if if just looks like helping one person. It ripples out. It always ripples out.

when your subscription practices are so predatory you have to send out unsolicited settlement emails to people who paid for your product six years ago

The reason that this comparison is inaccurate is because humans have the ability to use reason and make logical choices, but cats don’t. Humans see a car coming and wait until the street is clear to cross. Cats don’t. Humans know not to eat strange food on the ground. Cats don’t. Humans can look up which plants are toxic and avoid them. Cats can’t. Humans don’t eat raw rabbits and rodents that may carry disease. Cats do. Humans who hunt follow laws that prevent them from killing endangered species (besides shitty poachers). Cats don’t.

A far more accurate comparison would be a cat and a toddler. They lack the ability to recognize danger and don’t have the ability to reason that an adult does. I’m sure a toddler would have a great time roaming around the neighborhood, but no one is going to argue in favor of that. People can understand that doing that is irresponsible and dangerous. But no sane person is going to lock their toddler inside and provide them with nothing to do; no one is saying we should do that for cats either. Play with them. Provide cat trees. Rotate their toys. Give them puzzle feeders. And if you want them to go outside you can leash train them. Or build a catio. The options aren’t let them roam vs. never provide them with entertainment. If it is unbearable to entertain and care for a cat that is kept indoors, you probably shouldn’t own a cat.

Would you let your dog roam? Or your bird? How about your rabbit? I’m sure all of these animals would have a great time running (or flying) around the neighborhood, but we generally recognize that this is a bad idea. It’s no different for cats. We are caretakers for our animals, so it is up to us to use our big brains to make logical choices about what they should or shouldn’t do. We have the ability to understand the risks associated with free roaming. Cats don’t. We can weigh risks and benefits before making a decision. Cats can’t.

I’ve seen two cats who were roadkill, multiple poisoned rats that make easy prey, gardens full of poisonous (to cats) plants, and a cat at the vet who survived his arm being mauled by a fox through a catio. Yet people still do it. I’m in a small village, no idea how much worse in a bigger place it would be.

It is entirely cultural. Sadly, it also means people don’t tend to play with their pets and let them free roam as their only enrichment. So they baulk at how “bored” a cat would be indoors. Forgetting it’s not just kittens who need playtime. You are seen as a “weirdo” for harness/lead training a cat here, which I don’t agree with obviously.

Most rescues will not let you adopt a cat if you do not let it be indoor-outdoor. They will even check up on your garden to see it’s safety (like a cat can’t jump a fence lol). Charities do this, too.

I still keep my cat indoors only. My step mum thought I was being cruel until I explained to her the dangers of a cat outside.

Across the pond in New Zealand ONE SINGLE CAT drove an entire species to extinction. There are still arseholes over there but they’re generally even stricter than we are here in Oz.

(Real pen the last picture)

It is important for EVERYONE to know how to help ANYONE. Not everyone can give them selves their medicine under every circumstance. Be educated, help out.

(Real pen the last picture)

It is important for EVERYONE to know how to help ANYONE. Not everyone can give them selves their medicine under every circumstance. Be educated, help out.

If you see a fawn laying down on the ground all alone, leave it alone. It is not lost, it does not need your help, do not pick it up, do not move it.

This behavior evolved to keep deer young safe. The baby is very small, very quiet, and hard for most predators to see. A young fawn cannot keep up with a fleeing mother deer, which is their primary problem-solving strategy. So while the mother goes elsewhere to graze, the fawn stays safe and hidden. The mom will be back.

your friends and contemporaries are also a tremendous resource, and you should ask them too! But there’s just no replacement for the expertise of someone who has been knitting for sixty years. Part of this, also, is that older crafters can often give you materials to help you start, and your broke millennial friends usually can’t. My mom has more wool than she will ever use in her life, and she knows it. When one of my friends wanted to start knitting, my mom just gave her this gorgeous silver handspun yarn she’d made but wasn’t attached to. Yarn like that is expensive! Handspun yarn from someone who has been spinning for thirty years doesn’t often happen to beginners! And starting with good materials is better than starting with bad, because it helps you develop taste and a sense of quality more quickly.

Experienced crafters are often able to help you avoid learning bad or damaging habits—as a teenager, my sewing teacher spent a lot of time teaching me how to do things so that I didn’t get repetitive stress injuries (like she did). They’re going to be able to lend you books, send you ancient angelfire html pages with the most exacting instructions on earth, show you the good places to get crafting supplies that aren’t am*zon.

no, your friend probably has not noticed they cut you off four times in this conversation. 

no, your brother didn’t realize his music was that loud while you were studying. 

no, your bff or S.O. doesn’t remember that you’re on a tight deadline right now.

no, no one else is paying attention to the four power dynamics at play in your friend group right now.  

a habit of abused kids, especially kids with unstable parents, is the tendency to notice every little detail. We magnify small nuances into major things, largely because small nuances quickly became breaking points for parents. Managing moods, reading the room, perceiving danger in the order of words, the shift of body weight….it’s all a natural outgrowth of trying to manage unstable parents from a young age. 

Here’s the thing: most people don’t do that. I’m not saying everyone else is oblivious, I’m saying the over analysis of minor nuances is a habit of abuse. 

I have a rule: I do not respond to subtext. This includes guilt tripping, silent treatments, passive aggressive behavior, etc. I see it. I notice it. I even sometimes have to analyze it and take a deep breath and CHOOSE not to respond. Because whether it’s really there or just me over-reading things that actually don’t mean anything, the habit of lending credence to the part of me that sees danger in the wrong shift of body weight…that’s toxic for me. And dangerous to my relationships. 

It has honestly saved some of my relationships and it could have saved others if I had taken it to heart earlier

It’s how I approach all new relationships, and I’ll state this outright to be clear

I can’t stop myself from overanalyzing initially, but I have regularly stopped myself from obsessing over or acting on my overanalyzing