hyperlexichypatia

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This came up when I read "The Wizard of Oz" with my (second-wave feminist) mom -- I fully expected her to agree with me that of course the construction of "farmer's wife" is sexist; a woman farmer is just a farmer! But she surprised me by saying that no, a "farmer's wife" is a distinct job unto itself, and not every wife of a farmer is a Farmer's Wife, and technically Farmer's Wife can be done by someone who is not a woman married to a farmer.

Then we discussed whether there were any other examples of "______ spouse" being a distinct job unto itself -- we came up with Military Spouse, Diplomatic Spouse, and Pastor's Spouse.

#sexism #farmer's wives #farm families #sexism in language #historical language

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I don't need that engram in my cholesterol.

#no context

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People love doxxing disabled people/allies, don't they? Like we don't already know that our jobs are constantly conditional!

@/prismatic-bell is a zionist among other things so please stop reblogging posts that's got xir unneeded commentary on it.

#racism #ableism #free palestine

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INFO: Is "annoyance" a mild subset of anger, or a secret third thing. If the latter, it goes annoyance, sadness, anger.

#assume I am at least a little bit low key annoyed at everyone and everything all the time #and generally frustrated/irritated #but I rarely get “angry” in the sense of confrontational or yelling etc #I have resting annoyed face because I am in fact constantly annoyed #I am the most emotionally repressed autistic you will ever meet #I am in control of my emotions #...most of the time

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Huh. I think I was too distracted by the horrific ableism of that episode to really unpack the pro-war-crimes aspect.

I had to look up whether the Israeli squad of autistic analysts already existed when DS9 was on and could have been an inspiration -- it wasn't, that came later. But still.

Not to mention that Bajorans were written as an allegory for multiple marginalized groups INCLUDING Palestinians, and the rhetoric used against them by racist characters is just repackaging of anti-Palestinian rhetoric (Not only "They commit terrorist violence," but also "Their religion is Bad and they're Too Religious, they're Too Intractably Invested in their cultural identity, they don't assimilate with Us the Designated Good Guys, they don't try to make Us the Designated Good Guys feel better about participating in their oppression...").

Of course in the U.S., being Broadly In The Abstract sympathetic to Palestinians was more acceptable in the '90s than it is now, and plenty of Americans are broadly supportive of human rights but don't think of Palestinians as humans.

Actually, you know what? Ever since I learned that Ira Steven Behr signed that grossly unfair letter against Jonathan Glazer, I've been forced to kind of reevaluate some of my interpretations of things in Deep Space Nine.

Like Section 31. I was willing to suppose that it was always and only intended to be villainous. But knowing as I do now that the showrunner who included it is perfectly willing to turn a blind eye to genocide, I'm forced to wonder...was it critical? Was it?

Like, let's consider canon here. In "Statistical Probabilities", Bashir and the other augments calculate, in no uncertain terms, that the Federation can't win its war with the Dominion. Their model even accurately forecasts things that happen later in the series: the Romulans declaring war on the Dominion; a full-scale revolt on Cardassia Prime. The end of the episode kind of pooh-poohs their model, like, "Well you couldn't even forecast what Serena would do in this room" but like...(1) the premise is basically lifted from Asimov's psychohistory concept, which works on populations rather than individuals, and (2) there's even a line of dialogue in the episode saying that the models become *less* uncertain the further you go in time. And indeed, the Federation ultimately wins the war not because any of their assumptions were wrong, but because there was another factor that they weren't aware of: the Changeling plague. The plague that had, of course, been engineered by Section 31 to exterminate the Changelings.

So again you have to ask: *was* this critical? Or was the real message that a black ops division willing to commit genocide is necessary to preserve a "utopian" society, no matter how squeamish it makes a naïve idealist like Bashir? And yeah, the war is ultimately won by an act of compassion, but only *after* Bashir sinks to S31's level by kidnapping Sloane and invading his mind with illicit technology. So...is this really a win for idealism?

And then we have the Jem'Hadar. They're a race of slave soldiers, genetically engineered to require a compound that only the Changelings can give them. By any reasonable standard, they're victims. And yet, the series goes out of its way, especially in "The Abandoned", to establish that they're irredeemable. You can't save them. Victims of colonialism they may be, but your only choice is to kill them, or else they--preternaturally violent almost from the moment that they're born--*will* kill you. And of course, I've long assumed that this was just a really unfortunate attempt to subvert what had become the standard "I, Borg" style Star Trek trope where your enemies become less scary once you get to know them, but like. I would say that there's pretty close to a one-to-one correspondence between this premise and the ideology excusing the mass murder of children in Gaza.

Or the Maquis. There's this line at the start of "For the Uniform" where Sisko tells Eddington that he regards the refugees in the Demilitarized Zone as being "Victims of the Maquis", because they've kept alive the forlorn hope that they would ever be allowed to return to their homes and...Jesus, when I write it out like that, Hello, Palestinian Right of Return. [The episode of course ends with Sisko bombing a Maquis colony with chemical weapons, though it is somewhat less objectionable in practice than I'm making it sound here].

And you know what...I get that DS9 is a show that's intended to have moral complexity, and to be kind of ambiguous in a lot places, and not to give you simple answers and so on. And I'm *not* trying to do the standard JK Rowling/ Joss Whedon/ Justin Roiland thing where a creator falls from grace for whatever reason and people comb through their oeuvre to show that they were always wicked and fans were stupid for not seeing it earlier or whatever. But I will say that these things hit different when you know that the series was show-run for five seasons, comprising every episode that I've just named, by a man who would go on to sign his name to a letter maliciously quoting Jonathan Glazer out of context to drag him for condemning an active genocide. And given that I've been a fan of DS9 for basically my entire life, this is deeply unsettling to me.

#star trek ds9 #this shit is exhausting #kira nerys would punch someone in the face

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This is why part of me wishes vaccines did cause autism.

#ableism #eugenics #actually autistic

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I think there's so much emphasis in social justice spaces on "Your intent doesn't matter" and "Your intentions aren't an excuse" that we've become incapable of discussing forms of wrongdoing that are definitionally dependent on intent, like "grooming" or "gaslighting" or "manipulation."

A quick and easy definition of "grooming" is: Manipulatively befriending someone (generally a child) in order to win over their trust with the intent of abusing them (generally sexually).

Without that manipulative, deceptive, abusive intent, it's not grooming.

An adult befriending a child isn't grooming unless their intent in befriending that child is a pretext for abuse.

An adult behaving inappropriately toward a child still isn't grooming unless their intent is to abuse them.

If a high school teacher stumbles into class and announces "I got drunk and had a threesome last night!" that's gross, that's unprofessional, that's wildly inappropriate, but it is not grooming unless their intention is to steer the kids toward the possibility of sexual acts.

An adult making sexual advances on another adult, even a much younger adult, is also not grooming.

A consensual relationship (romantic, sexual, or platonic) between an older adult and a younger adult is certainly not grooming.

Even sexual harassment is not grooming! It's bad, but it's a different bad thing!

It's also extremely interesting to me that The Discourse has so thoroughly sexualized young people that the only possible motivation for befriending a young person is sexual.

Grooming Discourse has gone from "Be wary of adults who befriend children, because there is a possibility that their apparent friendship may actually be grooming them for sexual abuse" to "Grooming for sexual abuse is the only possible motive for an adult befriending a child" to "Even if there are no malicious motives, the very act of an adult befriending a child is in and of itself grooming" to "Also, young adults and disabled adults also count as 'children'" to "A 30 year old having a platonic friendship with a 20 year old is grooming."

It's exhausting

if i have to see someone use the word “grooming” one more time in an incorrect way i’m going to start throwing things. like YES this person had an inappropriate relationship with this other person. YES this person was abusive and manipulative. YES this person seemed creepily obsessed with this other person. etc etc etc. but that doesn’t automatically equal grooming !!! abuse isn’t necessarily grooming, stalking isn’t necessarily grooming, even pedophilia isn’t necessary grooming ! grooming refers to a SPECIFIC PATTERN OF BEHAVIOR that predatory adults will use on children before actually abusing them in order to normalize and suppress the abuse beforehand! it’s specifically nonviolent and is used to make the predator harder to get caught, to get the victim to trust and fear them, and to normalize said inappropriate behavior before it actually happens. i cannot fucking stand what the internet has done to this term. if you’re talking about domestic abuse, use the word domestic abuse. if you’re talking about rape, use the word rape. if you’re talking about stalking, use the word stalking. if you’re talking about straight up pedophilia, use that word. this is one of those words i’m putting on the shelf until the internet knows how to use it properly

#language #tw grooming #cw child abuse #ageism

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Who is helped in this scenario?

More to the point: how will your one issue improve under Trump?

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Especially when the criticism is that Christian child abuse is bad because it doesn't subject children to secular forms of child abuse like coercive psychiatry.

Christianity and other religions can absolutely facilitate child abuse, as can any system in a world where children are essentially property, but if you're not challenging the children-as-property part, you're just asking "How should children be abused?" or "Who should have the right to abuse children?" rather than "Children shouldn't be abused."

people always associating Catholicism(/Christianity as a whole) with child abuse really rubs me the wrong way because it's like yea sure that's an issue, so do you want to talk about how systems of control over children foster child abuse in general? you want to talk about abuse in schools too? you want to talk about family abolition? you wanna talk some fucking youth liberation up in here? no? oh i see you only care when you can use it as some kind of dunk on religion. cool.

#ageism #youth liberation #cw

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Also, caring for children (ones you created or otherwise) is important, valuable work that should be supported and compensated.

Not to mention that everyone in the working classes is "financially dependent on another person" under capitalism. The difference between you and a homemaker is a layoff. The difference between you and an unhoused person is a layoff plus a divorce. The difference between you and an unhoused disabled person is a layoff, a divorce, and an injury.

sometimes, when someone is criticizing the stay-at-home-wife movement being sold to young women by conservatives, it loses focus on the "selling you a repressive and authoritarian worldview" point and slides into... well... implicitly leaving disabled people to die.

and what i mean by that is, it's all well and good to say you should do everything in your power to make sure you're not financially dependent on another person... but what if "everything in your power" is "nothing?"

what if how society is structured means you have absolutely no choice but to be financially dependent on another person? what if it's that, or simply die? this is the choice disabled people are faced with. not even uncommonly... frequently. people who need full-time carers, or who have very expensive medication and assistive tech needs, or people who simply can't work in the current job structure, often have the choice of... well... find someone to be financially dependent on, or face a slow, painful death, usually without housing. even if you're lucky enough to get on a fixed income, it's never enough to even make monthly rent, and that's not counting the extra costs of food, toiletries, medicine...

in fact, a lot of disabled people (certainly notably women, but absolutely not limited to, and in fact i see this happen to trans men over and over again, and i've lost a dear transmasc friend because of this) are funneled into being stay-at-home parents and homemakers, forced to do all of the domestic labor and childcare in exchange for a roof over their head and access to their medications/assistive tech, and isolated in all the same ways tradwives are isolated. in fact, this even happens with leftist partners/parents. all the time, i see disabled people disappear from public life entirely, lose contact with all their friends, and consign themselves to a life of cleaning up after someone while struggling to handle their own health needs, even having their disabilities exacerbated and their lifespans shortened by the amount of domestic labor they're required to do.

but it isn't a choice... it can't be fixed by focusing on academia or work... and it's not due to buying into conservative propaganda. all i ask is, please remember this, and please never leave us out of these discussions.

#sexism #capitalism #ableism #abled feminism #feminism #people talk a big game about “your worth is not your productivity” or “your job is not your identity” #right up until someone is disabled and can't have a job #or is a homemaker #or a stay at home parent #or an unpaid family caregiver #by choice or by circumstance

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Can you send links to anti-psych theory/literature I want to learn more

I am so, so bad at remembering books I've read, but I have read several on this list! https://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/mad-studies

Honestly, even though it takes forever to read, "Madness and Civilization" by Michel Foucault is the classic for a reason. I recommend at least getting that one.

#mad pride #mad liberation #antipsych #books #send asks #asks #drop your own in replies

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Also, none of these require intervention from bystanders or authorities. Nothing has to "be done."

If you are uncomfortable around people doing these things in a public place, and choose not to go to a public place where people might do these things, that is your choice, but it in no way indicates any obligation of anyone managing a public space to cater to you by excluding people who act "strangely".

There’s nothing inherently “scary” about someone talking to themself in public.

There’s nothing “scary” about someone rocking back and forth in public.

There’s nothing “scary” about someone pacing back and forth in public.

Some of y’all are just ableist.

#ableism #disabled in public #public libraries

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can eugenics also apply to non human creatures as well? i remember seeing a tiktok talkong about their old toothless, death and blind dog and a vunch of people in the comments were suggesting it be put down despite their being no indication that the dog was miserable. everyone sorta just assumed that to be the case because being death and blind = not a life worth living (i dont agree with that)

Absolutely. Completely setting aside the question of whether nonhuman animals should have the same rights/legal status as humans (because that's a whole separate topic), the underlying ableist reasoning in how people talk about disabled nonhuman animals and "good breeding" and "bad breeding" and "responsible breeding" is just an outlet for the ableist, eugenicist attitudes they absolutely unquestioningly believe about humans.

While I'm saying things, this is also true of the way people talk about fat animals. Hearing people argue that patholgizing fat animals totally has nothing whatsoever to do with any unexamined fatphobia regarding humans is... always interesting.

It's also true of "intelligence." The way humans uncritically accept that "intelligence" is a. a real thing 2. a measurable/rankable thing iii. of which humans objectively have the most four. of which nonhumans can be ranked by how similar we think they are to humans Certainly betrays deeply, deeply ableist/neurobigoted assumptions about humans and intra-human dynamics.

Which, again, I'm not even approaching from an animal rights/welfare/liberation standpoint. I'm solely looking at how what people say about nonhuman animals reflects their underlying biases about humanity.

#asks #send asks #animals #eugenics #ableism #stop being ableist #animal breeding #fatphobia #intelligence is a social construct

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It's genuinely great that students at That One Private University are protesting the massacres in Palestine. Really. Good for them! We should all be protesting! Those students are doing everything right and nothing wrong! We should be talking about the censorship they're facing and the double standards with how actual neo-Nazis are treated.

But why are they the focus? Their intent isn't even to be the focus, it's to draw attention to ongoing war crimes. Why is American media covering students protesting war crimes more than they're covering the actual war crimes? Why is The Discourse now "Are the students going too far?" (no, they're not) rather than "Is the Israeli government going too far?" (YES, ABSOLUTELY)? Why are we talking about whether Private American College Students who support war crimes "feel unsafe" because of the unpopularity of their pro-war-crimes opinion, rather than whether victims of war crimes are actively actually physically unsafe?

They are also not the only people protesting this issue. There are plenty of working-class people also protesting. But now you've successfully reframed this as a rich-people issue.

Private college students are always, always a distraction. Even when what they're actually doing is a good thing. We can look at private college students doing good things and say "Good for them, the thing they are doing is good, and also, the fact that we're talking about this and not the actual problem is a distraction."

I am completely, unironically serious when I say that we should all boycott any news story focused on a private university.

Just don't read them. It's okay. We don't have to care about what people at private universities are doing.

There are no (private) "campus issues" that matter.

We can all stand up to this collective charade that private universities are somehow both Microcosms Of Society and also home to Strange Aliens to Objectify.

We don't have to care, let alone argue about, what people at private universities are doing, because they don't matter.

"What about people at private universities doing good things, like fighting climate change and opposing war?"

I promise there are people doing those same things at community colleges. Or town meetings. Or community groups or churches or temples or 4-H or literally anything that isn't a private university. You can write about those instead.

"What if private university students are gay or disabled or something else marginalized?"

I still don't care! I don't care if they're poor people there on scholarship! There are people in all of those demographics who aren't at private universities!

"But people who graduate from private universities control all the power in the world!"

Gee, that sounds like a serious social problem we should work on changing instead of validating that what goes on in private universities somehow matters (it doesn't).

So just don't read it. If we stop reading it, they'll stop writing it.

#boycott self-serving journalism #private university #journalism #make it stop #scroll on by #palestine #free palestine #free gaza #human rights

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Yes! I can see why smaller worlds would be afraid of being either ignored or swallowed up, though. Like smaller countries in the E.U. This is what I think about when I can't sleep.

See, I actually really like the take that alien characters on Deep Space Nine (and also Discovery's first season) have that the Federation are basically like a sort of insidious, outwardly friendly, slow-motion version of the Borg Collective. I absolutely agree that it makes sense for certain outsiders to perceive them that way. But I also think that it's clearly not actually true; Earth is still Earth; Vulcan is still Vulcan; I assume that the other Federation world's would still be recognizably themselves if we had actually enough before-and-after data to compare them. You don't lose your culture just because it's only one of many.

#star trek #political alliances #when do the benefits of stronger together outweigh the benefits of autonomy? #and will there always be separatists? #in a constant and never-ending flux between the desire for separatism and the desire for unification? #for all eternity? #ask Trill they know about these things

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I'm absolutely not disagreeing with you, but I am profoundly confused by this comment and I keep reading it to see if I'm missing something?

NPD

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People with Whiny Bitch Disorder need to Get The Help They Need to Process Their Trauma and Correct Their Brain Chemistry.

The Help They Need will be getting beaten with a stick . There will be petitions for insurance coverage for the sticks. People will blame the housing crisis on lack of affordable sticks to beat people Suffering From Living With Being People Who Have Whiny Bitch Disorder.

If anybody tries to say "Hey, this construction of Whiny Bitch Disorder and the treatment of beating people with sticks is kinda messed up," they'll be called oppressive and ableist for trivializing this serious disorder and not helping people suffering from Whiny Bitch Disorder get the beatings they need.

NPD

#ableism #mad pride #neurodiversity #stop being ableist #mad liberation #antipsychiatry #anti psych #antipsych