18th century trash

I love reading 18th century newspaper articles because it’ll just be like: what is the world coming to men are fastening their shoes with strings and using umbrellas #bring back masculine men

The amount of slavery in Ancient Rome was legitimately terrifying tbh

Y’all know that I’m into ancient Roman history and I do a lot of research on it but even though I should be used to it by now sometimes I read an anecdote about how an individual slave was treated and I’m hit with the realization that like a third of the population was living like that and I just need to put my head in my hands for a second

When you study ancient history you’re reminded that slavery has never once been kind or justified. It just takes on different forms of evil in every time and place that it infects.

We can never really know d'Eon's true gender identity. Sure. But? You'll still make sure to deadname her. You'll still use masculine pronouns for her. You'll still describe her as a man. You'll still ignore any of the ways she expressed her gender identity in her lifetime. Because why? Because if we can never really know we should assume d'Eon was cis right? Because "we shouldn't assume" is always code for we should assume cisgender.

It can be useful to bring how different cultures produce different gendered norms to resist any kind of “naturalistic” arguments, but also sometimes I wanna shake my fellow leftists by the shoulders and tell them that “normalized homosexuality only via widespread pederasty” or “third genders only allowed to exist as cultic prostitutes” are just as reactionary as “Western Homophobia”, they’re just operating under a different system.

History is so good for nosy people

Its actually so fucked up that people will use d'Eon talking about her experiences with misogyny as evidence that she wasn't actually a woman. I'm sorry I forgot that women must love misogyny. Must love being treated as less than. Trans women doubly so apparently.

There's a weird 3 star movie out there ready to change your life forever

it's always funny to see 19th century people torn between their appreciation for Our History and just how crass and embarrassing they find a good deal of written material from the past to be... preface to heroards diaries where the author is clearly consternated bc oh so fashionable early modern courts keep making dick ass shit and piss jokes

tired of cannibalism as a metaphor for love or sex. can we get into cannibalism as a metaphor for colonization.