this blog is no longer active

why i stopped buying clothes on amazon (and where i buy them instead)

read on wordpress if you prefer!

I love online shopping. I am extremely introverted, so I’m thrilled any time I can get something done without leaving my house. I buy pretty much everything, from food to books to school supplies, on Amazon.

I also really like clothes. I especially like cute, unique clothes that I know won’t look like what everyone else is wearing. I would describe my personal style as something along the lines of “vintage femme meets storybook witch,” so as you can imagine it’s rare for me to find clothes I would actually wear in my local TJ Max. Online shopping is amazing for finding that perfect piece to complete your outfit, especially if you have a more “eccentric” style. For several years now, I’ve been getting almost all of my clothes from Amazon or other online retailers (but mostly Amazon).

… And then, a few months ago, I read an article about the 2013 Savar Building Collapse. A clothing factory in Bangladesh collapsed and killed over 1,000 people, including children who were employed there. 

diana

is

bisexual

and 

the norse people (a.k.a. vikings) never wrote any actual religious texts, so there’s a lot of gaps in what we know about their religion and mythology. historians have tried to fill in the gaps with educated guesses, but a lot of it is still a mystery. 

while norse women had it better than a lot of women in other parts of europe at the time, norse society was still very sexist. in fact, masculine honor was their culture’s most valued personality trait, and for a man to look or act feminine was considered shameful and dishonorable.

norse women did participate in raids and battle, though! in fact, there are several legends about female warriors, and recent evidence suggests that many viking raiders were female. 

magic was considered feminine, and because of this it was shameful for a man to practice it. (men actually had a lot more restrictions on what was and wasn’t “honorable” for them to do than women did.) 

knowledge and wisdom were thought to be VERY closely tied to magic, so women were traditionally the keepers of knowledge (because It Wasn’t Manly To Know Shit). 

they practiced human sacrifice (mostly to odin).

they didn’t actually worship all of their “gods.” thor had the most devotees, and odin, freya/frigg, and frey were also popular. no one actually worshipped loki because He Was The Actual Worst. 

odin was the king of asgard but the norse actually didn’t like him much because he was associated with magic and wisdom (again, not manly). the other gods didn’t always like him either – he actually got kicked out of asgard on at least one occasion for being weird, essentially. 

loki once transformed himself into a female horse so that he (she?) could have sex with this really powerful stallion (don’t ask) and then later gave birth to a baby horse. which he gave to odin as a gift. whenever you see odin depicted riding a big grey stallion, just know that it’s his friend’s son. 

on a different occasion, loki spent several years shacked up with this lady giant and they had three children together: a giant wolf, a giant venomous snake, and a zombie child who grew up to be the queen of the underworld. 

freya/frigg was the goddess of love and fertility – but also of sex (and promiscuity), magic, war, gold, and death. she was temperamental and greedy and slept around, and she was formidable enough in battle that odin, the god of war, decided to marry her. she was not at all a “soft” goddess.

thor is the closest thing norse mythology has to a “good guy” but he’s a good guy by viking standards, which means that he’s really strong, really reckless, and really good at (and enthusiastic about) killing people. 

when christianity and christian-influenced philosophy was spreading through norse society, some people genuinely believed that it was the beginning of ragnarok. they took one look at the christian missionaries and were fully ready to believe that the world was ending.

there’s a god who was literally created from animated saliva.

second season of stranger things: 

when little boys grow up learning that men are the predators in romantic relationships and women are their prey, it creates a culture of sexual abuse.

when boys are taught that “real men go after what they want!” even if the woman initially says no, it creates a culture of sexual abuse.

when boys are taught that a girl who acts uninterested is “just playing hard to get,” it creates a culture of sexual abuse. 

when teenaged boys are told that “girls think it’s sexy when guys take control,” it creates a culture of sexual abuse.

when teenagers are exposed to a porn industry where 83% of videos depict some kind of violence against women, and “rape porn” is a popular search term, it creates a culture of sexual abuse. 

when young men and women are never taught about the importance of verbal consent and just assume that “it isn’t rape if they never say no,” it creates a culture of sexual abuse.

when drunk hookups are not only normalized, but are considered “just part of college life,” (even though someone who is drunk can’t consent) it creates a culture of sexual abuse.

when men are told that “men can’t get raped,” and/or that they’re always supposed to want sex, it creates a culture of sexual abuse.

when people who were sexually abused by someone of the same gender are ignored, talked over, and not taken seriously, it creates a culture of sexual abuse.