New Rule: Gender Apartheid | Real Time with Bill Maher
And finally, New Rule: if you're out protesting for a couple of hours wearing this...
... you have to go all the way and spend an afternoon running errands wearing one of these.
You can't side with the people who ruthlessly oppress women without at least getting a taste of what you're supporting.
Well, now that summer is here and the Hamas-backing college protesters have dispersed back to their summer internships at Goldman Sachs, I thought it might be a good time to say this: I actually admire your youthful idealism, and our world would be poorer without it. Much like your parents who just wasted 300 grand on that ignorance factory you call a college.
Not that I think it's your fault, being this poorly educated and morally confused. That takes a village. Shitty schools, overindulgent parents, social media, that priest who rubbed lotion on you.
But three cheers to you for at least having the impulse to seek a cause in something bigger than yourself. It's just that the one you picked, you missed the boat by a fucking mile.
But here's the good news. You want a cause? Cuz I totally got one for you. Apartheid. Yeah, apartheid, the thing you've been shouting about with Israel for months. Never mind that Israeli Arabs are actually full citizens. You learned that word from a 2 Chainz song and discovered that protesting South Africa's apartheid in the 80s was a righteous cause, and so it was. To this day, when celebrities are asked, who is the person they most admire, one name is always the safest choice.
So, naturally, when you heard that Israel was an apartheid state it gave you such a boner you literally pitched a tent.
You knew how wrong it was when tens of millions of South Africans had been treated like second class citizens just because of their race.
But here's the thing. Today, right now, hundreds of millions of women are treated worse than second class citizens. When you mandate that one category of human beings don't even have the right to show their face, that's apartheid. And it goes on in a lot of countries.
For the last couple years, women in Iran have been saying, "take this hijab and shove it." Because in 2022, a young woman named Mahsa Amini was arrested for wearing her mandatory hijab incorrectly and then died in police custody. And now security forces have killed over 500 people protesting her death and this obvious human rights violation. How about defunding those police?
Amnesty International says that, "Iranian authorities are waging a war on women that subjects them to constant surveillance beatings sexual violence and detention." What P. Diddy calls a hotel stay.
In Iran, MeToo isn't a movement, it's what a woman says when another woman says, my life sucks.
Yasmine Muhammad is a human rights activist who got married off to a Muslim man with fundamentalist views about women not exactly uncommon in the Muslim world. He forced her to wear the niqab all the time, including once beating her because she took her hijab off at home, because the apartment had a window through which people might see in. And this was in Vancouver.
Here's what Yasmine said about veiling.
"It just suppresses your humanity entirely. It's like a portable sensory deprivation chamber and you are no longer connected to humanity. You can't see properly. You can't hear properly. You can't speak properly. People can't see you. You can only see them. Just little things. Passing people on the street and just making eye contact and smiling, that's gone. You're no longer part of this world, and so you very quickly just shrivel up into nothing under there."
And that's my answer when someone says "Islamophobe."
Really, feminists? Come on, there's got to be a happy medium between a husband making his wife wear this, and a husband making his wife wear this.
I know 1619 was bad, but this is happening right now, right under your nose rings. And it's not just the clothes. 15 countries in the Middle East, including Gaza, have laws that require women to obey their husbands. Laws. Not just Harrison Butker's opinion.
And those societies also have guardianship laws, which means a woman needs permission from her husband to work, to travel, to leave the house, to go to school, to get medical attention. Nothing?
Honor killings, where women are murdered by their own fathers and-or brothers happen so frequently they can't even have an accurate account of how many.
In 59 countries, there are no laws against sexual harassment in the workplace, and many have no laws against domestic violence or spousal rape. 20 countries have marry-your-rapist laws. Multiple societies have laws about what jobs women can and can't do. Make a Barbie movie about that. 30 countries practice female genital mutilation, and 650 million women alive today were married as children.
Kids, if you really want to change the world and not just tie up Monday morning traffic, this is the apartheid that desperately needs your attention. Gender apartheid. This is what should be the social justice issue of your time. How about, from the river to the sea, every woman shall be free?
But in reality, it's not an issue at all. For one reason: the people who are doing it aren't white. I hate to have to be the one to break it to you kids, but non-white people can do bad things too. Now, white on black racism certainly has been of one of history's most horrific scourges. But also, it's true that in today's world being non-white means you can get away with murder.
So good on you kids for following your instinct to protest social injustice. Just remember, when it comes to finding a cause, pulling your head out of your ass is an important rite of passage.
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They won't do it not just because it's Intersectionally inconvenient, but also because it would require admitting that, as citizens of first world countries and students of Ivy League universities, not only do they not live in a "patriarchy," but they're some of the freest, most privileged, most self-determining people who have ever lived in the world at any time, ever.
And, having spent decades crafting a narrative of being long-suffering and "oppressed," they'd have to surrender the significant social, political and economic capital that narrative affords, by fighting for women in Iran, Gaza, Afghanistan and other countries to have the same rights and privileges they take for granted. And regularly spit on.
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Midnight Blooms | Elriel AU part 1/?
Sports romance, college AU.
Summary: When Elain is told by her father, a ruthless politician, that she is to marry the son of one of his closest friends, Lucien Vanserra, to assure her father’s win on the next election, she has no other choice but to agree. What she never expected was her convictions being tested by a tall, devastatingly beautiful black-haired hockey player who moved in right next door. And if there was one thing Elain was certain of, was that Azriel posed a dangerous threat to the previously dormant desires roaming inside her. And she needed to stay far, far away from him.
Tags: forbidden love, arranged marriage, forced proximity, modern setting, slow burn
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Read on AO3.
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Chapter 1
I never saw you coming
ELAIN
I never thought the house where I’ve only lived for a year would become the place I’d end up calling home, but here we are.
It’s a two story brick structure, with four bedrooms and two bathrooms. The kitchen is big enough for me to spend dead moments baking, and discovering new recipes, the living room is open, and gorgeous, with a somewhat high ceiling, a chimney and big windows that showcase the back patio beautifully. My favorite thing, no doubt, is the garden. The one in the back to be more exact. It is the main reason why I fell in love with this property last year when my sister Nesta, and I were hunting for a place to live during the school year.
The big patch of land was pretty much dead.
The landlord said he didn’t have time to waste planting flowers or trees, and laughed at me when I mentioned the immense potencial this place has. Right now, is unrecognizable from how it was when we moved in. I have a little vegetable garden at the far right corner, the newest addition, it has been a pain on my butt to get the flimsy vegetables to grow, but I think I’m going in a good direction.
Right below the windows, there are planters with my favorite flowers, when some of them get to big to share the space I move them into either the soil along the sides of the wooden walls separating this property from the ones beside it, or I give them their own special little planter and distribute them along the backyard's sitting area. It depends on my mood, really.
Anyway, I haven’t been here in two months, since last semester ended, and summer break began. Father has us stay with him during vacations, and holidays, and although I wanted to sneak out and come check and make sure my flowers were nice and watered, he didn’t allow it. Good thing I decided to ask Mrs. Wade to help me during the months I’d be away. Being the sweet old lady she is, she agreed in a heartbeat, only demanding I bake her some of my special chocolate chip cookies once I returned.
I’ve been anticipating coming back here so much, that feeling absolutely nothing when I do, wasn’t really what I was expecting.
Guess it has everything to do with the silly, little fact, that I’m getting married in six months.
Twenty-six weeks.
A blink of an eye, in wedding planning time.
Even worse considering I don’t even know the man I’m supposed to marry and spend the rest of my life with.
Father and his dreadful ideas you can't refuse.
“We should call the police,” Nesta says, sitting angrily at my side by the breakfast table, although her eyes remain glued to the little kitchen window, it has an excellent view to the house on the other side of the street. “Look at them! They totally sell drugs.”
She crosses her arms, and furrows her thin brows, her mouth is slanted on a grim pout. I blink, rapidly, trying to make sense of her words. I have no idea what she might be referring to, but Nesta has a reputation of hating everyone and everything that crosses her path, so I don’t take her words very seriously.
“Sure,” I reply, bringing my cup of tea to my lips for a sip. It’s cold, and doesn’t taste as good as it usually does.
How long have we been sitting here in the kitchen? We got back here at lunch time, and we've been cleaning and setting things up all afternoon. It feels like just seconds since I boiled water to have a nice cup of tea and relax a little, but considering my cup is still full, and mostly cold... I have a habit of drifting too far into my thoughts and having trouble coming back.
“I’m serious, Elain.” She insists. “It would be just our luck to end up being neighbors with…” she points at them with a firm and accusing finger, “jerks like that.”
I look out the window, and my lips part when I see the reason of my sister's fury.
Three guys. All tremendously tall, broad shoulders, dark hair, tattoos covering their tan skin. All of them, shirtless, wearing low rise sweat pants, laughing and playing around like little kids on the front yard, bottles of beer in their hands.
“Who was the owner of that house, again?” Nesta asks, still not turning around to look at me. “Didn’t our landlord mention he knew them? Maybe he can get me their number, I’m sure a call would solve this.”
“I don’t see the problem,” I say and she lets out a tiny, frustrated groan. “They’re just guys. It might be nice to have someone our age living near us, for the first time in forever.”
“You say that now, but when you can’t sleep because of the noise they’ll make throwing parties… then you’ll agree with me.”
“You like parties.” I point out.
“Not when I want to rest.” Nesta points out. "You're so unbothered because your bedroom isn't the one looking out into the street."
Her bad mood makes me smile a little. What can possibly be bothering her so much? She loves male company most of the time.
“Are you sure that’s really the problem here?”
“What is that supposed to mean?” Now she looks at me, with liquid fire in her eyes at the accusation. I giggle. She might think she is hiding her true feelings well, but I know her better than she’d like to admit. She's spent all summer away from men because father would be furious if he found out one of his daughters is sleeping around, the tabloids would go crazy if it got leaked to the press, and he'd probably cut her allowance off. Which is why she behaved.
But father is not here. And if some guy is stupid enough to not recognize my sister as the eldest daughter of our soon to be governor, then it is fair game for her.
“What are you guys talking about?” Feyre asks, coming into the kitchen wearing a knitted sweater and denim shorts.
“Nesta is drooling over those guys.”
“I'm absolutely not!” Nesta says, standing up to point towards the window, moving the think, embroidered curtain to a side, to show Feyre the show. “I’m just saying that they don’t look like the kind of guys you want to have as your neighbors. They probably cook meth in the basement.”
Feyre’s mouth opens and her eyes follows the three muscled man like a hungry beast following their prey. When she notices this, she shakes her head and takes a step back, awkwardly walking towards the fridge to retrieve a chilled bottle of water.
“They’re fine… I mean, they don’t look like meth dealers,” she says, and clears her throat. “How come you guys never mentioned you had such hot guys living only a couple feet away, huh?”
“Because we didn’t.” Nesta says, looking out of the window again, I’m pretty sure she’s giving them her signature death stare. “The house was empty last semester.”
Feyre shrugs.
“I don’t see the problem.” She brings the bottle water to her lips, peeking through the window once more.
“That’s what I said.”
“You two are too naive.” Nesta says, and then in a flash, her back straightens, and her shoulders tense. “Motherfucker.” She mutters, shaking her head from once side to the other so violently, the braid on the top of her hair looses a bit. “I know who these idiots are!”
“What?” I ask, standing up from the table, to peek at the window with them. Feyre is pretending not to be as intrigued as she is, and Nesta is just spewing curses. “Who are they?”
“The fucking hockey players, you know, the Night Beasts. Won the hockey tournament last year, or whatever it is called.” She says, and right as the words come out of her mouth, one of the guys, the tallest one, with shoulder length dark brown hair, half of it put up on a messy man bun, looks straight at us, the mischievous smile in his face only growing. “Is he looking at us?” Nesta lowers her voice as if she spoke a little louder he might listen, and the three of us freeze in place.
“Can he even see us?” Feyre asks.
“The window is glass, of course he can see us, Feyre.”
"I meant from that far."
And then, after a beat, the guy blows us a kiss and Nesta seems to me fuming at the ears.
“Cocky bastard,” she says, closing the curtain and grabbing our arms to get us away from the scene of the crime. “That’s it. I’m kicking them out.”
“You can’t kick them out, it’s not your house.” Feyre says, leaving the water bottle on top of the breakfast table, looking at me with concern. Neither of us really understands exactly what has Nesta so riled up, but she’s not listening to reason right now, and she most definitely won’t stop until all the anger boiling inside her disappears.
“What are you going to do?” I ask, following her with quick steps towards the main entry of our house. She rapidly puts on some shoes, fixes her braid, and storms out the house with a very scary aura surrounding her.
“Should we go too?” Feyre asks at my right. “She might kill them.”
“She won’t kill them,” I assure her, not sounding sure at all.
“Hey, you assholes! This is a family neighborhood.” We both hear her scream, and come to the silent agreement that yes, we should probably go stop her. Feyre moves faster than I do, crossing the threshold in three long, clean steps.
“Hey, there!” The tall guy says, waving a hand at us. “Maybe you should get binoculars next time, my abs are more impressive up close. That is, if you don’t have the balls to actually cross the street, our door is always open.”
“Don’t be a jerk, Cassian.” One of the guys say, he’s the shortest of the three, not less handsome, his torso also covered in dark ink, hair short, and perfectly combed. He looks friendlier than his friend. As soon as I join my sisters, I notice that Feyre’s feet are glued to the floor, her stare unmoving from the new guy’s face, and when he notices my sister, his eyes glisten at the attention, his smirk grows, and then he has the audacity to wink at her.
Feyre’s cheeks turn rosy pink, but she rolls her eyes.
“This is me being polite, Rhys,” Cassian replies, not breaking the eye contact with my sister, and hey, props to him for having the balls to face Nesta, not many have survived.
“Ladies, I’m sorry my brother here has the manners of a brute,” Rhys says, walking slowly to the side of the street, right where their front yard ends.
“I couldn’t care less about your brothers manners,” Nesta says. “This is a residential street, parties or loud noises after ten p.m are not allowed. And you don’t look like the kind of guys that live a very… quiet life. So, pack your shit up, and find somewhere else to live.”
“Nesta…” Feyre warns.
“Wait,” The Cassian guy says, pointing at my sister with one of his fingers. “I remember you.”
“What?” Nesta says, and I approach my sister until I’m standing next to Feyre.
Cassian laughs, throwing his head back as he does, like he can’t really contain it. “Don’t play dumb, now.”
“You don’t know me.” Nesta states as a fact.
“Oh, I know you,” he shoots back. “Very well, I might add.”
Nesta arches a brow. And the tension between them is so strong, it’d probably give you whiplash if it cut in half.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“The alley behind Elysian the last week of February? Ring any bells?” He teases her, and I chew the inside of my cheeks, watching their word war is like waiting for a grenade to explode.
Now it makes more sense why Nesta was so riled up by the presence of these men. She would’ve never admitted it to us, though. Not if we tried to pry the truth out of her with the worst kind of torture. She’s closed off like that when it comes to the men she dates, or sleeps with. Dating is not really on her dictionary.
“Seems like you have it committed to memory,” She teases him back, and Feyre looks at me surprised, biting her lower lip to keep herself from laughing. “Can’t say the same, I don’t waste time remembering guys who are… underwhelming, to say the least.”
Cassian’s confident smile disappears in a blink.
“You gave me a fake phone number, you know?” He tells her, like he’s wanted to say that to her for months, but never had the chance.
“Oh, I did?” Nesta feigns innocence. “Guess I couldn’t be bothered to remember my real one.”
Feyre chuckles beside me, then clears her throat. “We should go back inside.”
“I’m done here, anyway,” Nesta says, turning around on her heels. But before she can fully go back to the house, she says to them, lifting a single finger in the air: “One transgression to my rules, and I’m calling the police.”
“You’ll be joining in on the fun soon, gorgeous, don’t worry,” Cassian tells her, his confidence is back in place, like Nesta never gave a life threatening punch to his ego.
“In your dreams, asshole.”
“Believe it or not, my dreams come true all the time,” he tells her. “Mostly the dirty ones.”
Nesta rolls her eyes, and goes back inside of the house, closing the door with a bang.
“Sorry about that, my sister can be… a little intense.” Feyre says.
Cassian looks over Feyre's shoulder, like he's hoping to get one final glimpse of Nesta. “Just how I like them.”
“Cass,” Rhys warns and Cassian shuts his mouth, then Rhys turns his attention to feyre. “We won’t bother you. Much.”
“Oh, don’t worry about us,” Feyre says, also turning back around to go inside the house. “It’s Nesta the one you want to keep… content.”
“Will do,” Cassian replies, fast as lighting, like he’s accepting a challenge and he hasn’t even realized it yet.
“Good luck with that.”
Feyre takes a couple steps towards the porche, and knocks on the door. Nesta completely forgot we were outside with her when she decided to do her grand exit.
I’m about to follow my sister, when a new, rich, and velvety voice that we hadn’t heard before reaches my ears.
“We are throwing a little get-together tomorrow night,” he says. I look up at the sound, and my mouth dries at the sight of the man in front of us, my breath catches and my heart pounds so fast, all I can hear is the frantic heartbeats. High cheekbones, and a boyish grin on his face. Short dark hair like his friends, but a little messier. I hadn’t noticed him before, standing on the porche, like hidden by the shadows. Now, he’s all I can see. “You should come.”
“Azriel is right, you should come. It’ll be something small, I promise,” Rhys says, also walking back towards the house, putting one hand on top of the shoulder of his friend. “A one time thing, even. To kick start the year. I’m sure your sister won’t mind if it’s a Friday, correct?”
Azriel.
He looks down at his sneakers, but there’s a tiny smirk on his lips, the right side of his mouth lifting up slightly more than the left. Then his eyes look up again, directly at me, and my knees buckle, like they want to give in at the heavy weight of my body. God, he’s beautiful.
Beautiful, like it should be forbidden, illegal, to be.
Men like him don’t exist in real life. They just don’t.
And it is so unfair, so unfair, that he happens to live so close.
“Will there be booze?” Feyre asks, and Rhys smiles at her.
“What kind of booze do you prefer?”
She takes a couple seconds to answer, chewing on her lower lip, gloating at the way the guy can’t keep his eyes off of her.
“I really like wine.” She replies. “Good wine, though.”
“I’ll get you the best.”
She smiles even broadly.
“Great,” Feyre knocks on the door one more time, and it opens with an angry force, I chuckle when I see Nesta walking away with heavy and furious steps towards the stairs. “I’ll bring my boyfriend.”
And then Rhys is not smiling anymore.
“Come on, Elain.” She tells me and I giggle. “Wanna order pizza for dinner?”
“Sure.” I turn around and wave at them. “Goodnight.”
Rhys and Cassian grunt, twin annoyed grimaces in their faces.
But Azriel... he smiles at me.
And then waves back softly.
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hi! thank you so much for reading! I've been wanting to write an ACOTAR fanfic in a modern setting for so long, and i finally have the time (and the ideas) to do it, so i really appreciate you taking the time to read it! I will be updating it as i go, i hope to post regularly, so we'll see!
i´m also posting this on AO3, so it'd be great if you guys could go support me there as well! <3
ps. i always say this, but english isn't my first language, so i apologize if there are any mistakes<3
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