(Source: atbluediner, via vajeentambourine)
My Favorite 25 Essays of 2018
- “The Silence: The Legacy of Childhood Trauma” by Junot Díaz in The New Yorker
- “The Rage of the Incels” by Jia Tolentino in The New Yorker
- “One Year of #MeToo: A Younger Generation’s Remedy for Rage” by Amanda Petrusich in The New Yorker
- “Unheard Grief, Unmovable Men: How an Old Mexican Folktale Speaks to Our Pain Today” by John Paul Brammer in Catapult
- “How Fairy Tales Teach Us to Love the Unknowable” by Cate Frick in Catapult
- “I Used to Insist I Didn’t Get Angry. Not Anymore” by Leslie Jamison in The New York Times Magazine
- “Gillian Flynn Peers Into the Dark Side of Femininity” by Lauren Oyer in The New York Times Magazine
- “Is Television Ready for Angry Women?” by Sophie Gilbert in The Atlantic
- “Do Beyoncé Fans Have to Forgive Jay-Z?” by Hannah Giorgis in The Atlantic
- “How Famous Women Clean Up After Men” by Soraya Roberts in Longreads
- “The Miracle of the Mundane” by Heather Havrilesky in LongReads
- “Sharp Objects Finale Recap: Don’t Tell Mama” by Angelica Jade Bastien in Vulture
- In Conversation: Kathleen Turner in Vulture
- “Why 536 was the worst year to be alive” by Ann Gibbons in Science Magazine
- “When Priyanka Met Nick: A Love Story” by Abby Aguirre in Vogue
- “The Female Price of Male Pleasure” by Lili Loofbourow in The Week
- “We Need to Start Taking Young Women’s Love Stories Seriously” by Marian Crotty in Electric Literature
- “Female Agency in Movies” by Kellie Herson in The Outline
- “Mourning for the Void” by Hazel Cills in Jezebel
- “Cracked Fairy Tales and the Holocaust” by Sabrina Orah Mark in The Paris Review
- “How to Be Pretty On TV” by Elisa Gabbert in LitHub
- “Your American Dream Baby” by Vivian Zhu on her personal blog
- “We Prioritize Boys’ Suffering At Girls’ Expense” by Shannon Keating in BuzzFeed
- “You Owe Me An Apology” by Brittany Packnett in Elle
- “Why is our quest for validation online becoming so desperate?” by Emily Reynolds in HuckMag
(via as-i-am-blooming)
bro, a lot of men NEED to go to therapy not just for their own sake but for the sake of every person they have power over in their lives
(via iamstrongallonmyown)
No one will know the violence it took to become this gentle.
(via jigglypuffsvevo)
“Instead of separating your behaviors and choices into good and bad categories, you need to learn how to let yourself be a human of many seasons. Respect your natural ebb and flow. Respect that you’re adventurous and you’re also a stick in the mud. Respect that you’re taking a huge leap and you’ll probably miss home often. Make some space for your own longing and ambivalence, and resolve not to treat these as moral failings on your part. Let go of the guilt that kicks up around being who you are.
This is how you’ll stay out of a rut: by letting yourself be a rut-loving motherfucker sometimes. This is how you stay out in the world: by giving yourself the freedom to hide when you really feel like it. Declare your habits acceptable, within moderation. There is not a good way and a bad way of living. You can do anything you fucking like. Use your times of quiet, private laziness to fuel your outgoing, brave bursts of covering new ground. Reward periods of hard work with small indulgences.
Because once you manage to find balance in your life, you develop the ability to savor the work and the reward. You savor the courage and savor the fear. You’re proud of your toughness and you’re also proud of your ability to remain vulnerable and open in spite of all you’ve been through.
Occasionally you’ll still get a little stuck. You’ll retreat too far into yourself, you’ll indulge too much, and you’ll avoid the world again. Forgive yourself in advance for these things. Allow yourself some space to be human.”
Ask Polly: ‘I’m Starting a New Life, But There’s So Much Pressure to Get It Right!’
So whenever i would watch movies and see The Badass Female Character fighting in various ways, something about it always bugged me. I just assumed it was internalized misogyny that made me dislike characters like black widow and Tauriel and tried to make myself like them.
Then I was rewatching Mad Max Fury Road the other day and I noticed that nothing bothered me about watching Furiosa fight and I realized the problem wasn’t watching women fight in movies that got on my nerves.
Watching the stereotypical Badass Female Character she always has these effortless moves and a cocky, sexy smirk on her face as everything is easy. Watching Furiosa, she grunted and bared her teeth. Her fighting was hard and it took effort and it hurt like fighting is supposed to. For once her fighting style wasn’t supposed to seduce the audience it was to be effective.
I wasn’t disliking these characters because they were women I was disliking that their fighting was meant to remind me they were women. High heels and shapely outfits and not showing effort or discomfort because it’s more attractive to effortlessly lift a long leather clad leg over your head rather than rugby tackle someone.
It’s the same with the Wonder Woman movie too. Fighting is hard and it takes effort, blocking bombs and bullets with a shield makes her grimace and bare her teeth with the effort it takes. She’s not flip kicking bombs she’s yelling and straining, not because she’s weak or bad at fighting but because that’s what it would be like.
I really hope we’re moving into an era of women having fighting styles designed for realism and not how hot it looks for the men in the audience.
I’ve taken martial arts most of my life, and the way women fight in action movies has always bothered me. They overreach; they swivel too much; and their hair is always down. For a long time I wondered whether this was an effect of stage choreography. As a kid I briefly wondered (with horror) whether that was what women just looked like when they used martial arts. It doesn’t feel that way. It feels short, sharp, and forceful. You stay grounded. You control the distance between you and your opponent so you don’t have to lean way out. It’s practical, not pretty.
But then I finally (only recently!) saw a couple of examples of Action Women who looked like they actually knew how to fight, and it has healed me.
(via immimikyu)
recovery is not ‘soon i will be untouched, perfect, and in a permanent state of bliss. i will be healed and all will be well, forever.’
recovery is ‘i will continue to survive despite what happens, i will find ways to cope instead of continually tearing myself down. i will recover and will see myself in a light that i never thought was possible.’
Reminded of this excerpt from Getting Through the Day: Strategies for Adults Hurt as Children by Nancy J. Napier: “It also helps to remember that healing occurs in a spiral. We swing around again and again to the same old issues, but at different turns of the spiral. Each time we confront a similar feeling or reaction we have yet another opportunity to learn and to heal. Each time, we bring with us whatever new understanding we have gained since the last time we cycled through this particular difficulty.”
(via as-i-am-blooming)
